Independence Day
by bladecatcher86
Summary: I grew up to be a tech geek, but when I was a kid I idolized action heroes. Being one probably isn't as cool or glamorous as movies make it look – or as easy as Lara makes it look. But I'll do anything to impress her now. Anything. [Alex POV. Major 2013 reboot spoilers. Rated M for strong profanity and violence. One-sided Alex/Lara – or is it?]
1. Supporting Actor

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I don't own _Tomb Raider_, its characters, or any other intellectual property belonging to Crystal Dynamics or Square Enix. Nor do I own any of the other assorted bits of pop culture referenced here. Lara Croft belongs to no man – well, unless you count Toby Gard.

The following is rated **M** for strong profanity, violence, and occasional moments of black humor.

* * *

_I've had recurring nightmares that I was loved for who I am,_

_And missed the opportunity to be a better man._

- Muse, "Hoodoo"

* * *

**CHAPTER 1: SUPPORTING ACTOR**

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved movies. Back then I always wanted to be in pictures, but not just any old movies would suffice for 8-year-old Alex Weiss, no sir. I wanted to be in _action_ movies. I wanted to be the next Indiana Jones – you know, traveling the world, finding cool artifacts, improvising my way out of trouble, saving the world, getting the girl, that whole song-and-dance routine. Maybe even with my own kickass theme music if I was lucky, though in a pinch I'd settle for the last two minutes of "Knights of Cydonia."

This could probably go without saying, but I never became that guy and I think it's safe to assume that I never will. I am instead an electronics geek – I prefer the terms "expert" or "guru," but let's just call a spade a spade here. I saved up for my college books with a summer job at the Genius Bar and paid for a lot of other stuff with some admittedly legally questionable activities involving gambling sites that I won't discuss any further without my attorney present.

The best-case scenario for a guy like me is probably Jeff Goldblum in _Independence Day_, and the coolest thing he does in that movie is sit at his computer uploading a virus to the alien mothership. Whoop-dee-damn-doo. Meanwhile Will Smith is flying around blowing shit up, punching aliens in the face, and making wisecracks. The guy from _Spaceballs_ plays a President who doubles as a fighter pilot and delivers one of the most rousing speeches in action movie history. Man, even Randy fucking Quaid gets cooler stuff to do in that movie. He probably does the coolest thing out of _anyone_ in that movie, actually. At least he got to go out with style.

Anyway, a few years ago I took a more honest job as the resident technician aboard a ship called the _Endurance_. Or at least that's what I did until the ship wrecked in a storm off the coast of a Japanese island called Yamatai.

How do you like that? I buried the lede. See, this is why I'm not a journalist.

Well, not in _front_ of the camera, that is. Before the wreck I was also part of a film crew for a documentary hosted by the most narcissistic prick in the world. Dr. James Whitman is the kind of guy who won't hesitate to recite his resume from memory should you ever dare to disagree with his expertise. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that he has not one but _two_ doctorate degrees and 30 years of archaeological experience, I'd never have to work again. (Never mind that he's got someone else doing all his research for him – but I'll get to her later.) The other day he threw a hissy fit over having to gut a fish on camera, as if such a task is so barbaric and beneath him. Hey, stuff like that grosses me out too, but at least I sucked it up and dissected that frog in biology class – and that was in _seventh grade_. How Jonah got through that shoot without throwing Whitman off the ship, I'll never know. The doc didn't even need to be in that bit, but God forbid someone else gets the spotlight for more than two minutes.

The good news is that the rest of the _Endurance_ crew members have actually been pretty cool. I'll even go so far as to say that the top three most badass people I've ever met were on that ship. The bad news is that two of those three are dead now.

Angus Grimaldi, or "Grim" to his friends, was in his mid-60s, but I bet he still could have kicked my ass without breaking a sweat. He was never the type who'd back down from a fight, even in his golden years, but he was also a friendlier guy than his gruff Scottish demeanor would have you expect. He had a flair for storytelling too; if Sam and her camera survive all this, ask her to show you the bit with Grim's story about headbutting the Loch Ness Monster – who else would even _try_ that? I bet he was an unstoppable beast in his prime. He died fighting off a bunch of the psycho cultists that populate this island (they're called the Solarii – I think the name comes from their worship of Himiko, the Japanese Sun Queen), and knowing Grim I'm sure he was glad he went down swinging.

The second member of this triumphant triumvirate was our captain, Conrad Roth. He was exactly the kind of guy I'd always wanted to be. He was a former soldier turned professional treasure hunter. He traveled the world and the seven seas, and if the law ever said he couldn't do something he needed to do, he said "fuck it" and did it anyway. He was a charismatic leader, firm but fair, and despite my limited nautical experience I bet you'd be hard-pressed to find another ship run as tightly as his (Grim could have vouched for me on that; those guys went way back). Right now it's late at night, pitch black outside, and I'm helping build his funeral pyre in a small clearing in the forest. He survived a helicopter crash, then took an axe to the back, then turned around and shot the bastard who threw it – and some of that guy's friends for good measure – with the axe still lodged in his fucking back. He died soon after that, but holy shit… what a way to go.

And then there's Lara.

If you asked me to write down all my thoughts about her, I'd probably fill a volume big enough to make _War and Peace_ look like _The Cat in the Hat_. But here's the gist of it: She's fucking amazing.

First off, she's absolutely brilliant – she's done enough of Whitman's research on his behalf to take him to school in his own field, doctorate degrees be damned. She's as passionate about history and archaeology as the good doctor is about looking good on television. The way her eyes light up whenever she finds something cool and her voice lifts when she figures something out – man, I wish I could get that excited over anything.

Second, she may look like a nubile and vulnerable ingénue, but she's tough as nails. I knew she was the outdoorsy type and had a lot of hunting and survival skills, but until we were shipwrecked I had no idea what she was really capable of. Just a few hours ago the Solarii had Jonah and Reyes and I trapped in a cage dangling in a cave, and then all the floors collapsed into a pit of fire and brimstone. Lara climbed across the cage and shot some gas leaks, which caused explosions powerful enough to push the cage to the other side of the pit and drop on solid ground just long enough for all of us to get out. It was the kind of thing I used to think only happened in movies or video games.

The "too long, didn't pay attention" version: If she doesn't make it off this island in one piece, nobody will. _Ever._

And third… well… she's _extremely_ easy on the eyes. And the ears, for that matter. I have a thing for posh English accents like hers. She could read me the phone book and I'd think it sounded like Shakespeare. That or I'd be too distracted by her athletic frame, one that somehow still has curves in all the right places, or her perpetually ponytailed brown hair swishing to and fro with every tilt of her head, or her flawless face with those deep brown eyes.

She's basically a miracle of genetics. I don't think she even gets acne.

I look over at Lara as I collect more firewood. She's standing by herself over near a bush clutching a tree branch in one hand and rubbing her eye with the other. She's been holding that same branch looking lost in thought for the last ten minutes or so. I'm not sure exactly how long she's been over there. I kind of have more important things to worry about than looking at my watch.

I know she'll feel better again eventually. But I can't help feeling like anything I can do to accelerate that process would be worth it. I should go over and talk to her.

Wait, no I shouldn't. She needs some more time to herself. The last thing I'd want to do is accidentally make her feel worse. Even Sam is leaving her alone, and she knows Lara a hell of a lot better than I do. At least she would know what to say.

What the hell am I supposed to do? I've never seen Lara hurting like this. I never want to see it again. I wish I could snap my fingers and make it stop. I can't. But I can talk to her. Can't I?

_God damn it, Alex._

What?

_Listen to yourself. She just watched her godfather die, and all you can think about is spending some quality time with your crush. Fuck you, Alex. Fuck you, you unbelievably selfish and insensitive little bastard. You don't deserve her._

I know.

_You never had a chance in hell with her anyway._

I know. So I'll just take that branch and leave her be.

"Hey," I say. "Um… you want me to get that for you?"

"Hmm?" She follows my pointed index finger to the branch in her hand. "Oh! I… I actually forgot I still had this. Here." She hands me the branch.

"All right." There. See? That wasn't so bad. Now she knows she can have all the time she needs. She doesn't have to help right now if she's not feeling up to it.

I start to walk away. But then something occurs to me and I stop. Maybe there is one other thing I could tell her.

"Hey, Lara?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know when I'll get another chance to say this, so, um… thanks."

"For what?"

"You know, for saving our necks just now. And everything else you've been doing," I quickly add, though the way I say it makes it sound like an afterthought to _my_ ears, "but especially that. If it weren't for you I'd have been deep-fried in that lake of fire back there."

_And Reyes and Jonah too, but you just have to make it all about you, don't you Alex? Looks like the doc's been rubbing off on you._

"If it weren't for me, none of us would even be here," she counters. "And _all_ of us would still be alive."

Yikes. Well, I can't let this conversation end on that. Choose your next words carefully, boy.

"It's not your fault."

"Reyes certainly seems to think so."

I glance over at Reyes as she bitterly tosses another branch onto the ever-growing makeshift funeral pyre. She'd apologized for what she said upon finding Roth lying dead beside Lara, but there was something off in her tone when she did it. It was a somewhat begrudging tone, the kind people use when they're only saying sorry because they feel obligated to, not because they want to. Aside from possibly Whitman in full diva-tantrum mode, no one aboard the _Endurance_ is tougher on Lara than Reyes. She and Roth had always been close, though I must admit I hadn't paid much attention to their relationship, which is probably why I was surprised when they turned out to be former lovers. I wonder if she thinks Roth was playing favorites with Lara. For now, though, these are thoughts that are best left unsaid.

"She's just upset right now," I assure Lara.

_No shit, Sherlock. We all are._

"But she's right," Lara says. "Sailing into the Dragon's Triangle was _my_ idea. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and Grim and Roth would still be with us."

She'd certainly be less of a mess. For the first time I notice how much damage she's been taking – the bruising from where the Solarii had beaten her; the dried blood, scratches, and scrapes from fighting people and climbing cliffs and being in crashing helicopters; the accumulated grime from faceplanting into every mud puddle on Yamatai; and the ash on her clothes from rushing through burning buildings. I also spot the thin clear streaks extending from her eyes, cutting through the thin layer of dirt that's smeared on her face. Those look pretty fresh.

You want to know the hardest thing about listening to Reyes being so tough on Lara? There isn't anything Reyes could say to her that she doesn't already believe. So what exactly does that accomplish aside from twisting the knife?

"You couldn't have known things would be this bad," I tell her. "If we get off this island, it'll be because of everything you've done for us."

"You know," she says, "at least after my parents… _disappeared—"_ she doesn't like talking about what happened to them, and I still don't know the details, but she insistently refuses to use that _other_ D-word when it comes to her parents – "I still had Roth. He looked after me like I was his own child, taught me everything I know. And now he's gone, just like that." She punctuates her words with a finger snap. "He died protecting me, Alex. So did Grim. Did you know that?"

"Not about Grim."

"That's how it happened," she says. "We were on a tower in the shanty town, a long way up, and Mathias's men took him hostage. They told me to drop my bow, but Grim didn't want them taking me too, so he fought back and…"

She looks away and closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, and takes a deep breath to compose herself. It almost works, but I still notice a drop or two sneak through.

"And he fell," she continues. "So now, _two_ of us have died protecting the stupid girl who got us all into this mess in the first place. And if we can't get back out they'll have died for nothing." She looks back at me and I can hear her voice cracking a little as she asks, "Am I really worth all that?"

There's a short awkward silence after that. I know what I want my answer to be, or rather I think I do, but that question still manages to sucker-punch me. I hope she doesn't mean what I think she means.

"Well," I mumble, "I, uh—"

"I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head. "You don't have to answer that. It's not fair to ask _anyone_ something like that."

God damn it, this conversation has been a disaster. Whether I say anything or not, I give her chance after chance to beat herself up. I knew this was a bad idea. But I can't just let her have the last word here. Not when she seems to wish that axe went in _her_ back instead.

"Well, um… Grim and Roth certainly thought so," I finally answer. "As long as you stay alive, you can still prove them right."

She doesn't say anything, but judging from the look on her face I think she wants to know how.

"Just… you know… um…"

Come on, spit it out already.

"Keep… uh… keep being awesome."

Her mouth forms a thin smile and she snickers a little. "Thanks, Alex. You too."

And that's that. I give her a little nod, then turn around and head to the pyre to deposit the branch.

You know, I've always been so proud of my eloquence. "Keep being awesome"? Is that _seriously_ the best I could do? Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ, no wonder I'm still single. I bet if she dyes her hair blonde all I'd be able to tell her is how she looks so _different_.

But that last question keeps haunting me. She probably didn't even mean for me to take it this way, but now I hear that question in my mind and I twist it into an even more difficult question: What would have happened had I been in Roth's place? Or Grim's? Would I have made the same choices they did? Would I even have the intestinal fortitude to _consider_ doing what they did?

Ah, who the hell am I kidding? Lara would have been captured or killed, and the rest of us would have followed suit soon after. I wouldn't even have the guts to climb that radio tower that she used to send that distress signal (God, that feels like _eons_ ago now). I've always had a bit of a phobia when it comes to heights; I guess that's why I ended up working on a ship instead of a plane. I also have a _much_ bigger phobia of my childhood bullies turning out to be my quarter-life crisis.

Within a couple minutes of our chat she starts adding wood to the pyre and accepts a hug from Sam. She even offers to help place Roth's body atop it. But she would have done all that eventually. When we're ready to leave she stays behind to watch the pyre burn out, and all the while she doesn't look like she feels any better.

So what exactly did _that_ accomplish?

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

One chapter down, and then at least four more planned after that! To think, I was originally going to make this thing a one-shot.

**Fun Fact #1:** You have _no idea_ how hard it was to resist a reference to _South Park_'s "tree-fitty" joke for the bit about Grim's Loch Ness Monster story.

**Fun Fact #2:** The first published edition of _War and Peace_ was 1,225 pages long. _The Cat in the Hat_ is 61 pages long. Now get out your calculators – how long would a book have to be to "make _War and Peace_ look like _The Cat in the Hat_"? Approximately 24,600 pages. If you were to write one page per day, that book would take you just over 67 years to write.

**Fun Fact #3:** "Burying the lede" is a journalistic term. Basically it means you took too long to give the most important or interesting details in your article.


	2. Spin-Off

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** "I've torn through the pages of the years I have wasted and I've stolen all my stories, just copied and pasted. Is this about me now? Still about me now."

* * *

**CHAPTER 2: SPIN-OFF**

I may have wanted to grow up to be Indiana Jones, but back in the day my favorite movie was actually _Men In Black._ Even today it's one of my favorites, and now that I'm older I have a greater appreciation for things like Vincent D'Onofrio's performance as the villain (I've never seen another human being act that believably _alien_) or the mind-blowing closing scene revealing that our entire universe exists inside an alien's marble. Back then, though, I loved it because it was a world where aliens and bizarre conspiracy theories were absolutely real. It made me feel like I wasn't crazy. See, when you're the only kid in your class who believes that E.T. is out there, the only kid who wants to go to Roswell for summer vacation instead of Disneyland, you open yourself up to a whole lot of teasing. The few friends I actually had back then tried to make things better by nicknaming me "Agent A" in _MIB_ fashion, but even though I liked it I still kind of felt singled out, even among them, as "that kid who thinks aliens exist."

Mind you, this was at an age when my classmates still believed in Santa Claus, and our parents just made _him_ up in hopes of keeping us out of trouble at Christmastime. You mean to tell me that it's totally plausible for an old fat guy to fly around the globe dropping presents down every chimney on Earth in a single night, but it's impossible for any other place in the entire cosmos to support life? Even with the infinite space, time, and resources at said universe's disposal to create life since the Big Bang? Yeah, whatever. You might have slightly better luck convincing me that elves can build a PlayStation.

I'm going somewhere with all this. I promise.

Even if I wasn't fascinated by all things extraterrestrial, those people still would have dug up some reasons to make my life miserable. In grade school, I was one of the top students in my class, and I got there by being absolutely in love with learning. When other kids were reading _Goosebumps_ books, I was reading the encyclopedia; when other kids watched cartoons on Nickelodeon, I watched the Discovery Channel. I don't mean to sound like I'm being arrogant; that's just how I _was._ As a result, on top of being the "aliens exist" kid I also got beaten up a lot for being the teacher's pet.

I guess I was too young to understand that just because I thought something was interesting didn't mean anyone else would. So somewhere along the line, all of a sudden learning stopped being so much fun for me. I wanted to hide my brain, and I did it by laying off the studying almost completely. Instead I spent the bulk of my spare time privately cultivating an interest in building, fixing, and hacking computers. My classmates had rejected me, so I in turn rejected _them_. The bullying gradually ground to a halt over the years, so I figured I must have done something right.

My family moved to London when I was sixteen, courtesy of my dad's job, but instead of embracing the opportunity to reinvent myself I shied away from others in fear of history repeating. I decided I was better off being ignored than actively disliked, and I got my wish. To this day I'd be surprised if anyone from my graduating class remembers my name, aside from maybe a handful of people. I still did well in school, well enough to get into a really good university (acing the prep exams might have had something to do with that too), but I still felt like I could and probably should have done better.

But everything changed thanks to one course in Japanese history a few years ago. I mostly focused my studies on electronic engineering, but I took that class as an elective. It was a rare case where the old craving for knowledge kicked in again. It was something that I'd never learned much about before and it sounded interesting, so on a whim I decided to satisfy my curiosity, figuring if I didn't like it I could always switch to something else within the first couple weeks of the semester. (And yes, sometimes my reasoning for things really is that simple.) There came a point early that semester where the professor divided the class into groups of three for a research assignment. I could tell right away that one of my partners was the sort who'd just coast along and let the rest of us do the heavy lifting. The other was a spunky Japanese girl who wanted to get more in touch with her heritage by studying the land of her ancestors – and also, hopefully, score an easy A. Her name was Samantha Nishimura.

"Looks like you drew the short straw, huh?" I joked as we left the lecture hall.

"Nah," she said. "I'm sure some other poor kid got stuck with _two_ slackers."

"Yeah, well… I've been having some trouble keeping up with everything lately. I hope we don't get stuck."

She smiles and shrugs it off. "Don't worry about that. My BFF is a _major_ history buff. We're going to be archaeologists."

I did everything I could to avoid picturing Harrison Ford in a fedora, carrying a bullwhip. I know real archaeology is nothing like that.

"She helps me study all the time," Sam continued. "If she doesn't already have something we would need, it probably doesn't exist. She's the only person I've ever met who doesn't sell her books back after finals."

We became better friends over the course of that semester, and before our second exam Sam invited me to a review session with her and her mysterious study buddy. A couple days later she led me to a quiet isolated corner on the top floor at the library. There, sitting at a table reading a book while nodding her head to the song playing on her iPod, was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

"Alex," Sam said, "I'd like you to meet Lara Croft."

Lara simply _fascinates_ me, and has from the day I met her in that library. There are, of course, the obvious reasons; at first glance, I thought she would look more at home at, I don't know, the set of _Grey's Anatomy_ or something, rather than an archaeological dig. But the more time I spent around her, the more I noticed that same insatiable thirst for knowledge that I'd abandoned long ago. After I learned about the upper-class roots that accompanied her Hollywood good looks I immediately assumed she must have had things far easier than I did. I figured nobody would ever pick on a hot rich girl for being different, so of course she'd never feel discouraged from being herself.

This was because I'm a navel-gazing dickhead. As I got to know her better I figured out the _real_ difference between me and Lara is that while she has her own demons, she doesn't take any shit from anyone; I took shit from _everyone_, and I let them beat me.

On a brighter note, our growing friendship gave me a chance to show her my technical prowess firsthand. Once when her computer caught a virus, I offered to take a look and see if I could fix it. It turned out that she passed my building every day on her way to and from class, which made things easier than walking across the campus in pursuit of the school's "official" computer doctors. When I was finished she stopped over to pick it up. It started to rain so I did the gentlemanly thing and brought her to my room (much to the eternal envious surprise of my neighbors – I think I heard someone mumbling something about losing a "virginity pool"), where she discovered some of my other assorted projects.

"Why is there a Nintendo game in this toaster?" she asked.

I stuttered and stammered a bit before finally answering: "The, uh… the toaster _is_ the Nintendo."

She tilted her head like a puppy hearing a sound it didn't recognize. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Was that for a class project or something?"

"Oh, uh… that was just for fun, actually." I also figured it would save a little space.

"Does it work?"

Before long we were playing _Super Mario Bros. 3_ on my toaster. It was one of the greatest hours of my life, but I always figured that afternoon meant a hell of a lot more to me than it ever would to Lara.

The following summer, after the _Endurance_ had sailed its way through an especially rough storm, the ship's original technician decided he'd like to live long enough to enjoy retirement and stepped down. Roth was on the lookout for a new gadget guy, so Lara told him she knew someone from school who was pretty handy with electronics and would ask if that someone was interested. I spent nearly all of my free time prior to meeting Roth brushing up on nautical technology, just in case I needed a refresher course. It must have done the trick, because that's how I got this gig.

I can still remember where I was and what I was doing when Lara called me about it. I was in my room playing _Crypt Marauder_ on my PC, helping accomplished treasure hunter and noted Daisy Duke shorts enthusiast Lisa Crawford shoot dinosaurs in a Peruvian temple. An old roommate had been pestering me about creating an anatomically correct nudity mod called _Stripped Marauder_. ("If they really wanted to downplay Lisa's sex appeal for the gritty reboot," he rationalized, "they wouldn't have made her new character design _even hotter_ than she was before. Besides, maybe it'll entice more players to buy it and help the publisher actually meet their unrealistic sales expectations.") My original goal for that summer had been to instead program a cheat code that, when entered, made Lisa spontaneously explode, reprimanded you with a text display reading "JUST GOOGLE 'LISA CRAWFORD RULE 34' INSTEAD YOU PERVERT," deleted your most recent save data, and quit the game. Sorry buddy, but Lara's idea sounded more interesting.

Meeting Sam and Lara snapped me out of my funk. Before I met them I'd started falling out of touch with my friends from secondary school, which shouldn't even be possible in the age of Facebook, but I had found a way. I was also still underachieving in school back then, still feeling like I had to hide my brain, but this time from people who gave me no reason to feel so insecure. After I met them I started taking school a little more seriously (I went from "just enough to get a C" to "just enough to get a B" – old habits really do die hard, but it's a start), and now that I had my job on the _Endurance_ I felt like I belonged somewhere for the first time in a long time.

There's another part of me that still wants to hunt down those assholes who used to pick on me. I wouldn't ask for an apology; it wouldn't mean anything now, all these years after the fact. I'd tell them I work on a ship with a film crew and a team of archaeologists and we sail around the world exploring ruins and discovering relics, which they may have seen recently on the Discovery Channel. Then I'd ask what _they've_ done with their lives. I'd be shocked, _shocked_ to learn they'd been kicked out of school for smoking pot in their dorms, so now the best job they've been able to find is asking if I'd like cheese on my Whopper, but they couldn't keep that either because the manager caught them spitting in someone's onion rings.

Is that immature? You're goddamn right it is. I might even feel bad about it afterwards. But they had no problem dishing it out back then. I'm sure they can handle a little not-so-good-natured ribbing in return.

Then the shipwreck happened. Now my old feelings of frustration and underachievement have started creeping back in. Actually, I'm not even sure if they ever left. It feels more like they were just stashed away in the attic and forgotten about until the opportune moment arose. But this time they've brought a friend to the party – _uselessness._ Not much for a gadget guy to do when all your gadgets are either still on your sinking ship or already at the bottom of the sea, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile Lara's been running around this island somehow being even more fucking amazing than usual, doing everything within the realm of human possibility (and maybe some things _outside_ that realm) to break the Sun Queen's curse and get us home. I certainly can't do that. Jonah's been catching and cooking fish for us. I can't do that either; I'd ask him to show me how to fish, but we're so low on food that we're better off leaving it to the pro for now. Sam, the one these Solarii bastards have been after from the beginning, helped set up our camp. I don't even know how to pitch a fucking tent. And Reyes is—

"Son of a bitch!"

Reyes is _trying_ to fix the boat.

"Isn't there anything we could use to fix this damn boat?" she fumes.

"Have you tried using fish bones?" Jonah offers.

"That's not funny."

"I wasn't trying to be funny."

"Do I _look_ like MacGyver, Jonah?"

"I don't know. I've never watched that show."

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to pick up some of the dead cultists' weapons. I probably could have cobbled something together from the parts.

Reyes gives an exasperated sigh. "Where the hell are all the tools?"

Jonah glances toward the sky and strokes his chin a little as he thinks. "Knowing our luck," he answers, "they're probably still on the ship."

Actually, with our luck they're probably sitting at the bottom of the sea collecting rust. Or in the belly of a shark or something like that. But Reyes is in one of those "don't fuck with me or I will _kill you_" moods, and she's been getting increasingly sick of my joking around, so I keep my mouth shut.

"Of course they are," Reyes says. "Otherwise things might be too easy for us."

"Who was the last person to use them?" Jonah asks.

"I was. Just give me a minute and let me think." Reyes closes her eyes, clasps her hands behind her head, and starts slowly pacing back and forth in the sand mumbling to herself until she's ready to answer. "Okay… the last time I remember using the tools, I was fixing something in the engine room and I didn't get to finish before the storm hit. I left them there so I could just pick up where I left off without having to hunt down the toolbox again. I can't imagine they'd be anywhere else."

"All right," I say. "I'll just go over and pick them up, then."

"You sure?" Jonah asks.

"Yeah." I might as well make myself useful for a change.

"Okay, if you say so," Reyes says. "Good luck, Alex." She picks up a pistol and hands it to me. "You should probably take this, just in case."

Jeez. Don't everyone try to stop me all at once. Then again, maybe this means they think I can do this. Yeah, I'll keep telling myself it's the latter.

I grab an empty notepad, and a pen from a nearby table (these things survived the wreck and made it to shore, but not the tools? Figures). I also take an axe, and for a moment I wonder where we found —

Oh… oh God.

The blade looks like it's been cleaned recently. But I think I can still see some dried blood.

This is the axe that killed Roth, isn't it?

You've got to be kidding me! Who the _fuck_ thought it was a good idea to take this? How did Reyes not smack that person silly? What would Lara have thought if she'd seen it here?

Whoa. Calm down, Alex. It's only an axe. It didn't throw itself at Roth. And we need all the tools and weapons we can find, no matter what their previous owners did with them. That doesn't make me feel any better about having it though.

To get my mind off of carrying the weapon that left us without our captain, I write myself a reminder about the tools being in the engine room and put the pen and notepad in my back pocket. Then I tie a thin piece of rope around both ends of the axe and sling it over my back.

"I hope you plan on bringing that axe back," Reyes says. "We might need that."

"Lara has one too," I remind her. "Just ask to borrow hers."

"You don't want anyone to come with you?" Sam asks. I hope she isn't offering. She of all people should be the _last_ person to come with me, considering how desperately everyone on this island wants to get their hands on her. (That sounded a lot less perverted in my head.) She's better off with Reyes, Jonah, and Lara looking after her than just me. I'd like to think even Whitman isn't enough of an asshole to sell her out to these creepy pricks.

Then again, who knows what Whitman's thinking? Or even where he's been all night?

"He's just going to get the tools," Reyes says. "He'll be fine."

"Maybe we should wait for Lara to get back."

As sensible as Sam's idea is, something inside me wants to prove myself to the others, and especially to Lara. I can't help feeling like I owe her for everything she's done. I don't think I could even begin to repay her for last night alone, but it's worth a try.

"It's okay," I say. "She's already done a lot for us. I think she could use a little break." And aside from physical fatigue, she's probably still emotionally drained from losing Roth. But if I mention that part, Reyes will go ballistic.

My rationale doesn't make Sam feel any better.

"Give us a call if you need any help," she says. "Or better yet, if you get in too much trouble, just come back. I don't like this, Alex. I hope you know what you're doing."

So do I. Telling her that will only make her more worried though.

"Hey," I tease her, "I spent a lot of my youth setting high scores in _House of the Dead_ and _Time Crisis_. That's got to count for something!" I chuckle at myself to really drive home my alleged lack of worry and thank God Sam isn't a mind reader. "Just, uh, don't tell Jack Thompson I said that, okay?"

Well, at least that wipes the worry off her face. Now she's just confused. "Who?"

"Never mind."

The lesson, as always – if you have to explain the joke, it isn't funny.

"Hey," Sam says as I turn to go, "one last thing before you leave!"

"What?"

She tries to fake her signature playful smile. "Fifty points to Gryffindor!"

I laugh at that, genuinely. "Whatever. I still think Harry looks more like John Lennon."

The night before we set out on this voyage from hell, Sam invited the whole crew out to the bar for one last party. It ended up being just us three university kids at one of those noisy dance clubs where the only light is of the red and blue strobe variety and most of the songs just kind of blend into each other, which was perfectly fine with Sam because that way we could _really_ cut loose. As for Lara and I… well, we felt like humoring Sam.

I'm pretty sure I had a good time, but I mostly remember fragments of that night. I remember Sam kept trying to get us all out on the dance floor no matter how much Lara and I insisted on staying at the bar because we can't dance. I learned that the easiest way to make Lara dance is to let her have a few drinks and then play something by Daft Punk. ("It's all right, I've got two left feet myself," she slurred into my ear as we ignored the various sweat-and-perfume-scented bodies bumping into us. "I have _no_ sense of rhythm whatsoever, especially when I drink. We can be embarrassing together. Just keep your eyes open in case Sam comes back so we can get back to the bar.") A large part of our conversations consisted of the word "what." I set a new personal threshold for alcohol tolerance. Oh, and I remember that douche who told Lara she'd look better as a redhead and with a slightly slimmer ass – no doubt another disciple of that VH1 guy with the fuzzy hat – and then after she politely shot him down said she must still be sore from falling out of heaven. Her response: "Do your arms still hurt from climbing out of hell?"

"See, this is the nice thing about having a hot best friend," Sam said. "She's like my ozone layer. She protects me from all the ultraviolet guys. This way the only ones that get through to me are nothing but Vitamin D."

"God help you if they ever open a club in Antarctica," Lara teased.

Anyway, on to the point of this little anecdote before Steve Martin starts yelling at me: The next morning I learned that _someone_ had drawn a lightning bolt on my forehead while I was asleep. I'm still not sure whether I should be grateful that Lara spotted it first. She's the only one who would have told me right away.

I stand on the beach looking out toward the cliffs that stand between me and the shipwreck, trying to figure out how the hell I'm supposed to get to the other side. I guess I could just swim, but I have a gun, and guns don't like water. The most obvious solution would be building a raft, but if anyone's on the ship they'd probably notice me. That would be just my luck, drawing the attention of the only people on Earth that I _don't_ want noticing me.

What would Lara do?

It takes a few more minutes of observing my surroundings before I reach a conclusion. She'd probably cross that bridge to those platforms and huge hunks of wrecked ships and possibly jump around on a bunch of rocks and hanging crates later. Then she'd climb around on those cliffs and make her way through some hidden cave or bunker or something until she found a place where she could zip-line over to the ship.

Well, if I'm ever going to conquer that pesky fear of heights, I might as well do it now. I walk up a nearby set of wooden stairs and start to hurry across the first bridge – and then I freeze.

I freeze because I can hear the wood cracking behind me.

I turn around to look even though I know I'm not going to like what I see. A couple of planks break off from the bridge and drop into the ocean, with a third and possibly a fourth soon to follow.

_Must go faster, must go faster!_

I run across the bridge as fast as I can, trying to ignore the sounds of dropping planks that grow ever closer.

Finally I reach the next platform, and as I slow down to catch my breath I look back to see what, if anything, is left of the bridge. It's almost completely gone. I can't help but take that as a bad sign – I am _way_ too early in this excursion of mine to have already reached a point of no return.

Again I ask myself: What would Lara do? The answer comes much easier this time. She'd keep soldiering on without ever looking back. And so will I.

This newfound resolve almost immediately starts to waver as I look at where I need to go. There's a small ramp to the left that leads to nowhere, which means I'll have to grab that rod and swing my way to the next platform.

I should have built a raft.

I walk up to the rod to judge the distance. As tempting as it is to look down, and even though I don't think I'm high enough to significantly hurt myself if I fall into the water, all that would accomplish is freaking me out. I pull out my gun and put the safety on so I don't accidentally shoot myself when I land. I take a few steps back from the ramp and stick my glasses in my remaining empty back pocket so I won't drop them or break them when I land. It's a tight squeeze because I wear stereotypically nerdy Buddy Holly glasses, but I don't need them to see something that's right in front of me. I'm not Velma Dinkley, no matter what those kids who teased me in second grade will tell you.

I take a few deep breaths. Then I run hard and launch myself off the ramp, keeping my eyes focused on the rod, and I reach—

_Got it!_

My momentum carries me forward as I let go of the rod and _oh shit it's not going to be enough—_

I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack. My hand hits something solid and grips it tightly as I smack against the wall. Ouch. So this is what Lara's been up to, huh? She must have broken her ribs in about seventeen different places by now. I pull myself up onto the platform and take a few seconds to settle myself as I look ahead to the next jump. And the one immediately after that.

Fuck it. Just go for it.

I make the short leap to the next platform. I land on my feet, so I keep running and leap over to a solid floor on what looks like a big rusting chunk of a ship that must have wrecked here decades ago. I then climb a nearby wall, put my glasses back on, and start looking around for where to head next.

Shit. It looks like this place might be a dead – wait, there's a rope leading to the ground. Looks like that's the only way out of here. My eyes follow the rope to its starting point on the mast. I walk over to the mast in search of a way up, and sure enough there's a yellow ladder on the other side.

When I reach the top it occurs to me that I will have no choice but to look down. And that I don't know how I'm going to do any zip-lining, but since my priorities are obviously in perfect order I focus on the former. This time my eyes follow the rope to the ending point on the ground, which appears to be at least a hundred feet away and a few stories down. My heart starts pounding and my breath becomes heavy as the old fear of heights starts kicking in.

See, when I was seven years old, I fell out of a tree in my backyard and broke my left arm. My parents scolded me for climbing it without their permission or supervision and told me I was lucky I wasn't hurt even worse. So ever since, whenever I'm high up I start feeling like I'm going to fall and get hurt even worse than I did that day. It extends to airplanes too – no matter how many times I've been on flights, I will _always_ tense up when I feel the wing dipping as the pilot makes a turn. And don't even get me started on fucking turbulence…

But I can't let these things scare me anymore. I have to beat this once and for all. And not even so much for myself, but for Lara and Sam and Jonah and Reyes. I can't let them down. Ah, what the hell – I might even do it for the doc.

Now how the hell do I get down from here?

As I go to scratch the back of my neck, I hit my hand on the axe handle. And then the light bulb goes off.

Of course! This must be how Lara's been doing it.

So how do I get myself on the rope? Lara probably would have jumped for it, but let's take this "conquering fear" thing one step at a time here. I pull out the axe and hook the blade around the rope, hoping like hell that I won't accidentally cut it. The rope seems pretty taut, and fortunately I'm able to reach the axe while standing on tiptoes. I take extra care to not cut my left wrist as I grip near the blade. I slowly make my way to the edge and take a few deep breaths.

"Geronimo," I mutter to myself, and I push off.

It only takes about five seconds to reach the bottom, but I practically hyperventilate all the way down. When I get to the end I tumble in the sand and my glasses fall off. I shouldn't even have left them on, but I guess it's better than having them crushed inside my pocket. I pluck them out of the sand, wipe them off on my shirt, and put them back on. Then I look back up at from where I came, and I smile and chuckle softly with relief.

"I did it," I say out loud to nobody in particular. "I actually did it."

Would I say I've finally beaten the old phobia? Hell no. But it's definitely a start. I'm sure I'll have to keep testing it from here on out.

I look ahead toward a broken-down old building that may or may not have once been a lighthouse, and I start planning how to approach it with a new sense of – dare I say it – _confidence_. And for the first time since I set out on my own, I think to myself that maybe I really can do this after all.

With extra emphasis on _maybe_, of course.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

The next chapter will take a little longer to pump out. I have most of it written – in fact, I'm almost done the whole story – but there are still a few things I need to add. I already know what those things are; it's just a matter of writing it down and making it flow with what's already there (easier said than done, I know). Oh, and that quote at the top of this page is from "Medicine" by the awesomely named band We Were Promised Jetpacks.

Also, if someone ever hired me to DJ at their party, I'd consider it the easiest job ever. Why? Because all I would do is just put on Daft Punk's entire discography and I'd be good to go.

**Fun Fact #1:** I can hear you all saying it: "I'm calling _bullshit_ on that toaster that plays Nintendo games. There is no way that's real. You just made that up." Nope – it's real! You can see it in some of the Angry Video Game Nerd's more recent reviews. I understand electronics about as well as my dog understands quantum mechanics, so I figured this would be a simple and familiar way to show what Alex can do.

**Fun Fact #2:** Lara's voice actress currently plays an intern on _Grey's Anatomy._ And by sheer coincidence, her character is in love with a guy named Alex.

**Fun Fact #3:** I honestly think Harry Potter looks like John Lennon.


	3. Stunt Double

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** "I've got my violence in high-def ultra-realism!"

Watch out, 'cause here it comes.

* * *

**CHAPTER 3: STUNT DOUBLE**

I like to play chess, but I've never been all that good at it. Chess is all about strategy, about anticipating all the ways your opponent can react to your every move and maybe even how you'll react to those reactions. When I first started playing I would seize any available opportunity to take someone's pieces, and this led me to an embarrassingly long checkmate streak. I did beat one of my friends once, and it was within four moves. His king was still surrounded by his own pieces except for two paths he couldn't block, one each for my queen and bishop to take the king, and he didn't even notice he'd trapped himself until it was too late. I didn't realize I had won until someone else pointed out that my friend had no moves left. In other words, my first win was completely by accident. To this day my win total is still in the single digits, mostly because I keep falling back into old impulsive habits.

The only reason I've ever gotten better at chess was because I had gained a better understanding of the importance of each piece and the occasional unfortunate necessity of sacrifice, though I'm still not what you'd call a devoted student of the game. For a big chunk of the game, as I understand it, the queen is the piece you can least afford to lose (aside from the king, naturally). Sometimes you'll have to surrender a knight or a rook for her sake and it sucks, and if you're lucky you'll only have to give up a pawn, but as long as you have your queen you're still in the game. Without the queen your odds of winning might not be absolute zero, but things have definitely gotten a hell of a lot harder. There are times when the queen may be sacrificed to protect the king, but I always try to avoid that as much as I can. I've never been able to win without her.

Of course, this isn't chess.

If I actually stopped to think about the situation, I'd look at this as a cross between _Metal Gear Solid_ and _Resident Evil_. You need to manage your resources wisely and collect the most useful stuff you can carry. You need to know when to run and when to stay and fight. Most of the time you're better off not being seen at all, and if you do anything drastic someone will notice and call for backup. Then you're _really_ in deep shit, especially when there aren't any cardboard boxes lying around for you to hide in.

There isn't much of _anything _useful in this place, really. I found an old pocketknife sitting on a table, where it's probably been left for a really long time, and that's pretty much it. I can practically hear Lara's voice in my head, explaining with excitement how even though the kanji is difficult to read this must have belonged to a Japanese soldier during World War II. Well, now it belongs to me. I stick it as deep into one of my front pockets as it can go, though it still sticks out a bit because those pockets aren't very deep.

It wasn't easy getting to this bunker. There used to be a lot more wooden platforms and bridges and beams to cross before I came through. I hate this place so much. I hate it, I tell you, I _hate it_. Every single thing on this island falls apart almost immediately after you touch it, which is likely the consequence of decades of accumulated rot and disuse, but part of me can't help wanting to scream at whoever built this crap. The first few times it happened, I was pretty damn scared; the next thousand were fucking annoying. I hope Lara's had better luck getting around than I'm having. I'm surprised the earth itself hasn't given way beneath my feet at this point.

I don't even trust this bunker to keep from caving in. The floors are all covered with bits of rubble that you could probably fit into the holes in the ceiling and walls; it's like the worst jigsaw puzzle ever. The walls themselves are all chipped paint and crumbling bricks, there's barely any light in this place at all, and everything smells like sea water and stale air. Old and rusting pipes and machines are all that differentiate one room from the next. There are even a few open areas filled with vine-covered pillars and patches of grass and massive holes that have been blown in the ceiling, most likely by Mathias's men. These clearings are the only sources of natural light because there aren't any windows anywhere else. After all, having windows that your enemies could presumably see you through would defeat the whole purpose of having a top-secret bunker built into the side of a cliff, now wouldn't it?

This place kind of gives me the creeps. It reminds me of this show I saw on the History Channel a few years ago about what the world would look like if humans suddenly went extinct. Whoever was supposed to take care of this place probably shouldn't ask for a raise any time soon. Then again, being dead for about seventy years makes it kind of hard to do that anyway.

I sneak my way through the halls and up the stairs, hoping I don't run into anybody. That's another thing I don't like about this place – not a lot of places to hide. Well, hopefully I won't have to worry about—

_Oh shit._

I see a cultist at the other end of the hall investigating some old machine. He doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I have to find some way to get past him.

My hand instinctively reaches for the gun, and for a moment I wonder why that, of all things, was the first solution that came to mind. It's probably because I don't know how to do a proper sleeper hold. Still, I keep my hand empty for the time being. Shooting him would make too much noise and draw too much attention, because God only knows how many other people are here. I sneak forward as slowly as I can, hoping he doesn't turn around.

He starts turning around. "What the—"

_Fuck!_

Without even thinking I pounce on him and drag him down before he can raise his gun at me. He drops his gun instead.

I pin him to the ground and start punching. It doesn't seem to have much effect.

He throws a punch in return. I dodge it just in time but it throws me off balance.

Now he's reaching for something. The knife. It's still sticking out of my pocket. I punch him again and his hand falls away. There's a noise that sounds like radio static, but I can't tell where it's coming from.

I pull the knife out of my pocket and flick the blade out. Then I slash at him.

He catches my wrist and starts trying to twist the blade around. I grip the knife with both hands to counter his muscle. It only serves to slow him down, so I decide to play dirty. I lean over and bite him on the hand.

It's enough to make him recoil in pain, let go of the knife, and give me an opening. So I aim higher and thrust my arm forward.

His eyes widen in terror as the blade plunges into his neck.

Holy shit.

_What the FUCK did I just do?_

The jugular. Holy fucking shit, I think I completely fucking _severed_ his jugular…

I pull the blade out and awkwardly crab-walk backwards until I hit the wall. All I can do is just sit there and watch as the guy feebly reaches for his throat in some futile attempt to stop the bleeding, and I listen to the nauseating gurgling sounds he makes as he chokes, and all I can think about for some reason is how when I was six I'd watch reruns of _The Beverly Hillbillies_ on cable with my grandmother after school while Mom finished her shift at the office, and the reason I think of this is because the guy's neck looks like Jed Clampett's oil strike. Blood bubbles out of the gaping hole in his throat and forms a little pool on the floor.

I reach for my gun again and point it at his head, hoping I can just put this guy out of his misery already. I pull the trigger.

Nothing happens.

Nothing happens because I still have the safety on.

Finally his hands drop to the ground and the gurgling stops. Then his head lolls to one side and blood starts trickling out of his mouth. He stops moving after that. And his eyes are still open.

The room is silent, except for my heavy panting and the soft buzz of radio static.

Holy shit.

That just happened. I can't believe that just fucking happened.

_I_ did this.

I think I'm going to be sick.

No, I _know_ I'm going to be sick. I can feel my stomach churning and I can taste the vomit rising in the back of my throat.

I wonder if Indiana Jones felt like this after _his_ first kill.

I wish there was a sink around here, and there doesn't seem to be one. I guess that's for the best anyway – any sinks in this place wouldn't have been used since the '40s. I'm not putting anything coming out of that hypothetical faucet into my mouth. So I do the only thing I _can_ do. I swallow the vomit, as if that could possibly get rid of this rancid aftertaste, and stand up slowly so my buckling knees don't completely give way. I walk over to the dead man and reach out with a trembling hand to take his assault rifle. It always bothered me in movies when the hero kills someone who has a stronger weapon and just leaves it with the guy's body in favor of his trusty pistol. I guess it's because assault rifles are usually military weapons, while pistols are more common for cops and civilians, so maybe it's supposed to enhance the hero's everyman appeal. I don't know. I have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about anymore.

Now I hear footsteps and voices echoing in the hall. Oh, fuck this. That must have been the radio noise I was hearing earlier. It's another couple of Solarii checking up on their comrade.

I hurry for cover behind a wall and peek out as the cultists investigate the body. Luckily, neither one is facing me.

"Shit," the first one says. "I had a feeling he might be dead."

"It looks like a fucking _vampire_ got him," says the second, kneeling to take a closer look. "I could have gone the rest of my life without learning what an Adam's apple looked like on the inside."

"It's that girl again, isn't it?" the first says with an irritated sigh. "The Outsider. I've had it up to _here_ with that little limey cunt. You want to know what I'd like to do with her?"

"I think we'd _all_ like to put a bullet in her brain at this point," the second replies.

_Over my dead fucking body, you son of a—_

Whoa. Take it easy, tiger. That temper could get you killed.

The first cultist shakes his head. "She'd be getting off too easy. I'm going to shoot her in the back, break her spine so she can't move anymore. Then I'll carry her to the beach and feed her to the pigs."

"Not sharks?"

"I'm crippling her first, remember?"

"So? That makes her perfect shark bait. She can't swim away."

"That's the whole problem," the first guy says matter-of-factly. "If I drop her in the ocean, she'll probably drown before anything can get to her. And sharks eat too fast anyway. I want the bitch to die screaming."

All right, that's it. This asshole needs to go.

"Man, you've got _issues_," the second says with a laugh. "I bet she's cute. How long has it been since the last time you saw a woman? You sure you wouldn't want to have a little fun with her first?"

You know what? Fuck that guy too.

"The same way she's been having fun with our brothers all over this island?" the first counters. "I don't give a damn if Helen of Troy shows up. She's one thorn I can't wait to get out of our side."

"Well," says the second, "the last I heard from anyone about the girl, she was in a chopper crash. Maybe it's one of her friends."

"Oh, so now there could be _two_ crazy kids running around with guns and Rambo complexes?" The first guy lets out a groan that echoes a little in the empty room. "Great, thanks. That just made my whole fuckin' day."

"Hey, speaking of guns… where did this guy's rifle go?"

"It's over here."

And with that I step out from behind the wall and unload the entire assault rifle clip into both their bodies. The second guy goes down almost immediately. I think I got him in the back of his head. The first tries to run but still takes a few bullets and falls to the floor, still alive but bleeding profusely and in obvious pain. As I approach him I toss aside the empty rifle and pull out the pistol.

"Go ahead," he croaks as he starts lifting himself up with his shotgun. "Kill me. Kill as many of my brothers as you want. You're _never_ getting off this island! You, and all your friends, and especially that fucking girlfriend of yours—"

Hey, moron – much to my chagrin, Lara's not my girlfriend.

"You're _all_ going to die here! You hear me? You're dead! The Sun Queen will see to that!"

I point the pistol at his head. "You first, asshole."

Rule #2 of _Zombieland_ – always double tap. It's good to save ammo. But it's better to make sure the monsters don't follow you.

I blink as I fire at his head. I miss. Well, sort of. He falls back to the floor, screaming in agony and clutching the right side of his head as the blood flows from where his ear used to be. What's left of his ear is sitting in a tiny red puddle about a foot away.

Shit. Well, _that_ wasn't supposed to happen.

Let's try this again. Get within point-blank range of this guy. No, hold the gun with _two_ hands this time, stupid. Do it the way Roth showed you.

There you go, all done. Now who's getting off too easy?

I take the shotgun from the first cultist and pistol ammo from the second. But I think I'd better stick to the stealth approach from now on. If those guys hadn't had their backs turned, I'd be dead. It's actually kind of disappointing to consider how easy my buttons still are to push, even after all the years of bullying that I thought would have thickened my skin by now.

Can't say I envy whoever has to clean up this mess though. What I wouldn't give to go back in time to last week, when my hands were still (mostly) clean, we were all still alive and well, and the only brain stew I'd ever seen in person was at a Green Day concert when I was fifteen.

I continue making my way through the bunker, shotgun in hand. I could have taken the one I carried last night, but considering all the acrobatics I've had to do just to get here, I guess it's better that I didn't. And yes, a pistol has better range and is easier to carry and conceal, and assault rifles hold a _lot_ more ammo, but I just feel more confident with one of these bad boys. It's probably because I've done the most practice with good old Mr. 12-Gauge. Ever since I started working on the _Endurance_, I've done far more training with firearms than I could possibly have imagined.

"In this line of work, you never know what sort of jams you could get yourself into," Roth told me the day he first showed me how to use a pistol. "Sometimes it's better to practice a skill you may never need than to need it and not know what to do."

I'll admit hearing that was pretty jarring. I'd thought I was only in this to maintain their electronic equipment. The notion of ending up in situations where people could be shooting at me probably should have scared me off, and for a more reasonable fellow such danger probably would have been a deal-breaker. Maybe I just didn't take the warning seriously enough. After all, we were merely a humble band of treasure hunters sailing around the world in the name of archaeology. It's not like I signed up for mercenary work or joined the army or something.

But do you want to know the biggest reason the shotgun eventually became my weapon of choice? You get one guess.

No, it isn't because I'm nostalgic for _House of the Dead III_, but that's a pretty good guess.

One day, a few months after I joined the _Endurance_ crew, I went to get some target practice and noticed someone else was already there. She was wearing a tank top and tight black workout pants with her hair pulled back in a ponytail as usual, and both her arms were extended with a pistol in each hand. I stood back and watched her shoot until she ran out of bullets. She was pretty good – better with her right hand than the left, but that's what practice is for, I guess.

"So, um," I said to Lara instead of a simple hello, "that's an interesting technique you've got going there."

"Technique?"

"Yeah, you know, the whole twin pistol thing," I said, making gun shapes with my hands and pointing them at nothing in particular. "It's very, uh… very John Woo."

"So what if it is?" Lara asked. "Not a fan of his films, I take it?"

"Oh, it's not that," I said. "I was just wondering if I should, like, release the doves _now_ or wait until you're done."

She snickered a little at the reference. "Quit teasing me and let me practice."

"Right, sorry."

I let her get back to shooting and looked over at the gun rack. I had gone there to get some work in with the pistol, but after watching some of Lara's dual-wielding I decided to step my game up a notch. So I grabbed a shotgun off the rack instead and stood beside her, taking aim by raising the big gun with one arm.

"Hey," she said before I could shoot, "you want to know why I'm using two guns at the same time?"

"You just won a million dollars?"

She looked over at me as if I had grown a third eyeball, an expression that in retrospect was actually hilarious but at the time made me trip over my words like I was learning to speak English for the first time.

"It's, uh, another movie reference, and… you know what? Never mind."

"It's the same reason you're about to hurt yourself with that _Terminator_ technique," she continued. "I saw it in a film and thought it looked cool."

Fucking movies. Is there anything they _haven't_ lied to me about?

"It's all right," Lara said, smirking a little. "I remember my first time with a shotgun. I almost dislocated my shoulder." She set her pistols down and started walking over. "Here, let me show you how to hold that."

My heart thumped like a kick drum as she adjusted my body to the proper stance and guided the gun to my shoulder. I almost missed the part about resting my cheek against the butt to align my aim. When it came time to actually fire I did so without hesitation and jerked backward a little from the recoil. As I recovered from the blast I looked over and could see a hole in the target several inches above the left shoulder.

Well, at least I didn't _completely_ miss.

"Not bad for your first time," she said with a smile and a pat to my shoulder. "Keep working on that and we'll have you looking like a proper huntsman yet!"

"It's funny," I said, chuckling softly, "I never really saw myself as a hunter."

"Neither did I," she admitted. "And honestly, sometimes I still don't."

"No riding around in a red coat chasing foxes for you, huh?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong," she said. "I'll never say no to a good horseback ride. But I won't kill the fox either. Why would I want to? I'm not some angry farmer whose chickens keep being eaten."

"Or collecting heads for your wall," I added.

She shook her head vigorously. "Absolutely not. Bambi's mother is safe with me, unless there isn't anything else to eat for miles around."

"So is that what you do on your camping trips with Roth?" I asked.

"I do the tracking and he does the shooting." She flashed a warm smile as if reminiscing about something. "Then we both tell lots of ghost stories."

We both got a decent laugh out of that mental image – well, I did, anyway. But I slowed to a halt once I noticed she had stopped.

"My mother used to read a lot of folklore," she went on. "Whenever Roth plans a camping trip, I'll borrow one of her old books to see if I can find anything that'll scare him. When I was little she would read me some of the tamer, non-scary stories she collected before bed."

She began staring off into space, her fingertips gently brushing against one of the pistols she left on the ledge.

"Sometimes I wonder if… um…"

"What?"

"Oh, it's nothing," she said, looking back over at me. "I just lost my train of thought, that's all."

She gripped her pistol and turned toward the target, but I wasn't about to let her get away that easily. I myself happen to be pretty fond of the "lost my train of thought" excuse whenever I decide in mid-sentence that I don't want to finish that sentence. I just hoped she wouldn't mind me probing a little.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

She set the pistol back down and took a deep breath.

"The anniversary of… what happened to my parents," she answered. "It's coming up soon."

"Oh," I mumbled. "Well, we can just drop it if—"

"It's all right," she said. "It's just… sometimes I wonder if Mum and Dad would want me living this kind of life, following in their footsteps and all that. After all, look where it got _them_, you know?"

I had an idea of where they ended up, but I knew it wasn't anything Lara would want to hear. I kept my mouth shut and let her continue.

"But mostly there'll be times like when I first saw the pyramids in Egypt or the ruins of the Roman Coliseum," she said, her voice rising the same way it does whenever she starts geeking out over something she discovers, "and I'll feel that itch to learn everything I can about them and the people who built them, and I'll realize that I can't see myself doing anything else." She ran her fingers through her hair and let out a gentle laugh. "It's very… _strange_, don't you think?"

"Not _that_ strange," I told her with a smile.

Cute anecdote, isn't it? Wouldn't you rather hear more stuff like that than the gory details about the two other guys I killed while I was telling you that story?

It wasn't pretty. I blasted a hole through one guy's heart from behind and made the other's head explode like a zombie in a George Romero movie. I threw up for real after accidentally stepping on his disembodied jaw. His fucking _tongue_ was still attached.

Be _glad_ you missed out on that shit. I switched to my pistol after that.

Finally I reach the bunker exit. It would have happened sooner if not for the stupid door being jammed, and my arms are killing me from all the climbing I just had to do to reach the roof, but I'll take it. It's pretty nice to see daylight again.

It isn't so nice to have those guys on the bunker roof shooting at me though. At least they didn't notice me until I'd already climbed up there and turned around. And to be fair, I kind of started this skirmish by shooting the first guy in the face.

I run for cover behind something big and heavy with lots of white rope tied around it. I wait for someone to run out of bullets, listening for the sound of magazines being exchanged, and then peek out on my left side. The two remaining Solarii are standing in the left corner on the opposite side of the hole I climbed through.

I open fire. The second guy takes three or four bullets to the chest and stumbles to the ground, but I can't tell if he's dead. I take cover again to reload – shit, this is my last clip. Better make it count.

I peek out again and see the third guy slowly making his way over. He's carrying a bow and arrow. Somehow I've managed to save the guy with the slowest weapon for last. What luck.

My aim isn't quite as true this time. I only hit him once – think I got him in the thigh. What can I say? Moving targets are tricky.

With my pistol now empty, I switch to the shotgun. I take a deep breath and rush out from behind my cover. The third guy sees me coming, swears, and struggles to stand up straight to aim his bow. I blast him in the chest and the string on his bow snaps as he staggers backward and falls on his back. He lies there for about ten seconds, then slowly starts trying to lift himself into a sitting position, groaning with pain as I approach him. Yeah, somehow this guy is still alive after taking a slug to the sternum. I can't believe it either. Mr. 12-Gauge fixes that problem nice and quick.

I hear a soft rustling sound to my right, and not very far away. I look over to where the second guy had fallen only to find that he'd gotten back up after all, breathing heavily and clutching his stomach. Mr. 12-Gauge can fix that too.

The blast mostly catches him in his right shoulder thanks to my hasty aiming, but he doesn't fall this time. I try to shoot him again and – you've got to be _kidding me!_ I'm out of bullets for this gun too?

I think the cultist has noticed that I'm completely spent. He yells and starts charging at me like a bull. So I do the only thing I can think to do. I take the shotgun by the muzzle and swing it at him like a baseball bat. The butt smashes him right in the mouth and his head jerks backwards with a sickening _crack_ that came from either his neck or his jaw. As soon as he hits the ground I give him a few more solid whacks just to make sure he stays down. The _crack_s start coming from his rib cage this time.

By the time I'm finished with him he isn't moving anymore. His chest is a mess. His skin has been reduced to bloody pulp with jagged broken bones sticking out like toothpicks. I slump against the nearest wall to catch my breath and for a moment I feel like I'm going to be sick again, but the feeling passes a lot quicker this time. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing.

I'll tell you what definitely _isn't_ a good thing: the Russian voice coming from a radio on one of the dead guys. I'm still so worn out from the climbing and the fighting that I can't tell which guy has it.

"Bunker team, this is Boris!"

Who the fuck is Boris?

"What the hell is going on over there? Where are you? I'm still waiting for your report!"

My blood runs cold. I've got to find that radio. I pounce on the nearest body and start frisking it. Maybe I can fake the report well enough to not tip this guy off. Yeah, and maybe tomorrow I'll be crowned the king of Spain.

I find ammo for my pistol, but no radio. I look over toward one of the other bodies and start to frisk that too.

"Come in, bunker team!"

Where the hell is it?

"This is your last chance to respond, bunker team!"

How quickly I forget the lessons of _Metal Gear Solid_. If you do anything drastic…

"Communications with the bunker team have failed."

Someone will notice…

"Sending reinforcements immediately."

And call for backup.

Well, at least now I know the third guy had the radio this whole time. Too bad I didn't check him sooner.

From the rooftop I can see the wreck of the _Endurance_. There are long ropes extending from the deck to a nearby cliff. There's a small dot quickly ascending the rope. And another after that.

_What are you doing? You need to hide! NOW!_

Damn it, I _know_ that! But where?

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

This chapter and the next have definitely been the toughest to write. I have a feeling Chapter 4 will end up being a hulking behemoth of text. And for most of what's left to write, I won't even have the luxury of just following what you do in the game as I did here.

The quote at the top of the page comes from "Survivalism" by Nine Inch Nails this time.

**Fun Fact #1:** Apparently the original concept for the _Tomb Raider_ reboot involved Lara riding around on a horse and fighting demonic giants. _Shadow of the Colossus_, anyone?

**Fun Fact #2:** Alex's nickname for his shotgun is derived from a scene toward the beginning of _From Dusk Till Dawn_ where George Clooney refers to his gun as "Mr. 44."

**Fun Fact #3:** One of the scenes that kept this chapter on the shelf was the flashback where Lara shows Alex how to use the shotgun. I did some reading about proper shotgun technique and even watched some YouTube videos of first-time shooters, all for the sake of a couple paragraphs. I also wanted Lara's characterization to be in sync with the girl who apologizes to the deer she shoots at the start of the game. That, and I've been kind of busy with work lately.

Like I said… Chapter 4 is going to be a _beast_. But the last chapter is pretty much already finished, so whatever's missing from Chapter 4 now is all that's keeping this from being complete.


	4. Sidekick

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** "Can I get a minute of not being nervous and not thinking of my dick?"

No. What you'll get instead is a whole lot of angst. And oh yes… there will be blood.

(This chapter is a _monster_. Want to know the word count for this page, which includes my usual self-indulgent author's notes? All together now: IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAND!)

* * *

**CHAPTER 4: SIDEKICK**

You know, you get a really beautiful view of the coast of Yamatai from this rooftop. And then you can look out toward the east and see the Pacific Ocean extend for miles and miles until finally reaching the horizon line, the only sound being the soft crashing of the waves several stories below. I should have come up here during those last moments of darkness when you can still see the countless stars of the night sky, these rays of light that spent hundreds or even thousands of years traveling fast enough to circle the Earth seven times per second across the infinite void of space just so they could reach your eyes, doing their best to not fade away a little bit longer so you can trace that last couple of constellations with no city lights around to drown them out. I bet this place looks amazing at sunrise, especially on a day like today when there isn't a cloud in the sky from here to Tokyo except those little wispy ones that look like stretched-out cotton balls, and you can admire all the soft pink and orange hues as they slowly give way to the familiar robin's-egg blue. You might even be able to see Venus if you look carefully enough, but I can't remember how to find it. Say what you will about the greatest masterpieces human hands have ever put on canvas, but there's nothing quite like what nature does with its paintbrush.

What a shame that I can't stick around a little longer to properly appreciate the scene. But I guess that's what happens when a bunch of lunatics are hunting you down with machine guns.

I spend my last moments atop the roof looking out to the cliffs where the first member of the Solarii reinforcements climbs off the rope and starts fidgeting with some device that he must have used to propel him on his way. I think it's called a rope ascender; they must be standard issue in places like this where ropes are the only way to get around. I'd say I have maybe a minute to find a place to hide, and that's being generous. There's a big wide-open patch of land below, the only distinctive features being a campsite in the middle and the rusted remains of a long-abandoned military truck stashed away in a dark corner. Not much to choose from. If these guys are here looking for me, they won't have a better chance to find me than right now.

I drop down from the roof and immediately make a run for the truck. I still don't think it'll be enough to just hide behind it. Luckily I can sneak in through the back, so I do just in case some of these guys are especially attentive and might notice a pair of feet behind the truck that shouldn't be there. Through the windshield I can see the first few men reaching the bunker entrance and trying in vain to bust through the door, and there are still others coming from the ship. I could be hiding in this truck for a while, and I'm feeling pretty exhausted from the lack of sleep and excess of action. I pull out the little notebook and start scribbling my thoughts to keep myself awake. I lay flat on my stomach as I write so they can't see me through the windshield. I don't know how many of these guys there'll be but I doubt I'll be able to take them all out on my own, even if I have become a little more, shall we say, _trigger-happy_ as of late.

To think, I've only been shooting and stabbing and bludgeoning people for the last couple hours. This is what Lara's been doing the whole time we've been on Yamatai. It probably doesn't even faze her anymore at this point. Well, not for now. And maybe it shouldn't, because this is all about survival and if she doesn't kill them they'll kill her. It's like what she told me about hunting – there's a difference between killing because you _have_ to and killing because you_ want_ to. I guess the reason she's so tough is because she's accepted that in times like these morals and ethics might have to go on the backburner for a while. She fights to break Himiko's curse, a curse that has plagued this island and anyone unfortunate enough to stumble across it for centuries. (Some of us are still skeptical about that – looking at you, Reyes – but make no mistake about it, Lara is totally right and there is something supernaturally fucked up going on here.) But more than that, she fights to protect her friends, to set right what she thinks she did wrong even though, let's be honest, we probably would have ended up here anyway.

And why do I fight? Sure, I may have said I wanted to be helpful, but I've got my own stupid ulterior motives, don't I? I fight because I want to feel like a bad motherfucker. More importantly, I want to score some points with Lara, make her think I can be as tough as she is and see the same things in me that I see in her. But even on the off chance that, you know, the feeling is mutual, we took it to that next level, we got out of the "Friend Zone," pick your cliché – would she ever be happy with me? There are so many worthier candidates for her out there, and she seems more interested in books than boys anyway. But just for the sake of argument, let's say we started going out – how long would it last? With her ambition and work ethic I see no reason why a slacker like me wouldn't drive her nuts, or why she couldn't still be doing this job a year from now, or _five_ years from now, or _ten_ or _twenty_, or even when she's Roth's age. Do I have another thirty years of this in me? Shit, I don't even know if I'll last another thirty _minutes_ in this place. Any guy who pursues her would have to be able to keep up with her, and I don't know if I can. So what if we go out and it ends up being a serious long-term thing? Like, serious enough to start thinking about living together or even having kids? Yeah, I want a family of my own someday, but I don't want to slow her down and I don't want to take her away from something she enjoys because it's such a huge part of who she is, and I love her the way she is. The last thing I'd want to do is take this fucking amazing girl and completely _neutralize_ everything that – wait, _why_ am I talking about this? I can't even ask her on _one date_, and I'm thinking thirty years down the fucking road and worrying about kids that don't even exist! How fucking stupid am I? I mean, before Yamatai I could _maybe_ see something _possibly_ working out, and even that was at my most _extremely_ optimistic! What hope is there that we could be anything but dysfunctional now? We both know that someday we'll have to come to grips with what happened here. Hey, maybe we can go to the same group therapy sessions, bond over some traumatizing horror stories about slaughtering all these people who tried to murder us, and top the day off with dinner and a movie so we can pretend we're still ordinary people! Still a better love story than _Twilight_, right? Sure warms _my_ heart right to the fucking core!

So here I am, just _writing _a confession in a notebook that I'm hoping she'll never read as opposed to just biting the bullet and asking her out. (Or something resembling one; if I write down everything I'm thinking and she somehow finds and reads this someday, she'll think I'm a total basket case – and she'd be right.) I wish I could give a better excuse for not doing it already than just run-of-the-mill neurosis, but I got nothing. I mean, whether she says yes or no, at least then I'd have a straight answer and I can move on with my life. But hey, why shake up the status quo when you've already got something good and un-awkward, right?

"Someday you need to either go for it or get over it," I once heard Sam tell her sister. "Pussyfooting around never got anybody anywhere. I mean, it's bad enough that _every freakin'_ _show_ on television has to drag out the same tired 'will-they-or-won't-they' story arc for six years when _everyone_ knows they'll hook up at the end. I don't want to put up with that drama in real life."

God, I'm such an idiot. A selfish, gutless idiot, and I'll never change no matter how much I may want to so—

Hold on. Wait a minute. Let me call my cerebral stenographer real quick.

Did I just say… _the L word _back there? Shit, I think I actually said it twice. Where did that come from?

I guess the seeds have always been there, even back when I only knew her as Sam's gorgeous study buddy. But they only really started to grow as I got to know her, as I began to understand that she _is_ everything I've always wished I was. After she climbed that radio tower I told her she was "my hero." I'm sure she just took it as jubilant exaggeration, like something a baseball fan would say after watching someone on his favorite team hit a game-winning home run. But when I look back over the last few years, I realize that every time I have made a conscious decision to better myself, Lara was always the catalyst. I wanted to reshape myself into the kind of man who deserved her affection, or rather the kind I _thought_ deserved it. I know it sounds completely fucking pathetic, and honestly pretty stupid too (who the hell am I to act like I know what she's looking for, or assume she's even looking at all?), but it's true.

Maybe the reason I'm so reluctant to admit these things is because… well, I've never been in love. I don't know how it's _supposed_ to feel or how you know you're feeling it, so even though I think this might be it, I might be wrong. And nobody's ever been in love with me either. I was never very popular with the girls in school – or at least I didn't think I was. I can't tell when or if anyone is interested in me that way. My modus operandi is to just assume that they're not. What signs am I supposed to look for? What's the difference between flirting and just being friendly? I couldn't figure it out back then and I still don't really get it now. I suppose that's a side effect of spending too much time goofing off with my computer instead of other people.

All I know is that what happens in Yamatai isn't going to stay in Yamatai. Whatever she's doing now to keep the full weight of all _this_ from hitting her, this transformation into something she didn't want to be and all the post-traumatic stress disorder that'll come with it, not to mention the pain of becoming an orphan all over again – that's going to stop working eventually. And when that happens… well, think of it like this. I didn't _have _to talk to her after Roth died. It wasn't like, "Oh look, Lara's sad. I guess _somebody _has to talk to her _some_ time, so it might as well be me, and right now." I did it because I _wanted_ to.

I know she's strong enough to carry that weight on her own. I think we all know that now, and she's already endured plenty of shit in her life without me. But even though I know it's going to be hard, that there'll be a _lot_ of pain on the way in the near future, I'm ready and willing to lend my muscle… just in case.

I peek out the windshield again to check on the incoming Solarii. It looks like these are the last two guys, but they don't seem to be going anywhere. I think I can hear them having a chat, but I can't make out what they're saying. I pocket the notebook, slowly climb out of the truck to eavesdrop, and pull out the pistol.

"So nobody's going to stay out here?" one of them asks. "That can't be right."

"Boris thinks whoever cleaned out the bunker is still inside and heading for the beach," says the other. "If we find the killer, that's great. If the killer leads us to their friends, it'll be like old Santa Claus came early this year. Besides, you know how Boris gets if we don't follow his orders to the letter."

"No need to remind me," says the first. "I still have the scars from last time."

"If you ask me," the second continues, "I think Boris has it all backwards. I think whoever made the mess in there is somewhere out _here_ and heading for the ship. I'll bet you all the money in my pocket the killer's hiding in that truck over there."

Technically I'm _behind_ the truck now, so you lose.

"Should we go check it out?"

"Nah. Even if I'm right, what chance do the two of us have against someone who wiped out the _first_ bunker team? The guys on the ship can take care of it. And Boris can't get pissed at us because we did exactly what he told us to do – go inside and make sure nobody else gets through the bunker. Need a boost?"

"Man, just because Boris kicked my ass doesn't mean I can't climb shit anymore."

I peek out from behind the truck and watch them climb to the roof. Once they disappear I wait a few more minutes before coming out into the open. Then I climb just high enough to look around and make sure the only guys on the roof are still the three I killed earlier and drop back down. The last thing I'd need is for someone on the roof to start shooting at me while I'm making my way across the rope to the next cliff.

I pocket my glasses again and head over to the rope. I straddle it and lean forward so I can lift my feet to grip it. The whole time I can feel my heart thumping harder and harder, so I try taking some deep breaths to relax myself.

_Come on, man. Don't be a pussy. It's just like the rope climb in gym class. The teacher always said you were better at it than you showed. You don't suck at this._

It's not that I sucked at the rope climb. I could have kept going if I wanted to. I just didn't want to go any higher than halfway up, two-thirds at the absolute most. Fear of heights, remember?

_This is different. This time it's sideways._

It's on an upward angle with a few stories of nothing but air between me and the deep blue sea.

_Okay, _mostly _sideways. Stop being so fucking pedantic about semantics. Climb the rope._

Damn it, inner voice, you are not helping.

I finally get a firm enough grip with both hands and feet and start to slowly shimmy across the gap. My body is trembling like I'm standing in a mild earthquake and my palms are starting to sweat. It doesn't help that the rope keeps wobbling a little. My eyes stay focused on what is directly ahead of me and absolutely nowhere else as I continue to climb.

_All right, you're about halfway across. See? This hasn't been so—_

A strong gust of wind suddenly whooshes through the gap and blows me upside down.

_Bad._

I cling to the rope like a child hugging a safety blanket, shaking even harder than before. It isn't worth trying to right myself at this point; I'll probably fuck it up and either drop all my stuff or just drop. Got to keep going.

_Nice and slow now. Focus on the rope. There you go, just like that. Don't look any further down than your feet. And God help you if the wind starts kicking up again…_

Finally I reach the next cliff and drop to the ground with a big sigh of relief. I pull out my axe and cut the rope to keep the guys in the bunker from coming back this way – and immediately regret the decision, because now _I_ can't go back this way either. Well, not unless someone happens to come along with a bow and arrow to shoot a rope across or something. You know, someone like—

No. Not _her_. The whole damn reason I came out here in the first place was so she wouldn't have to do it.

So how am I supposed to get back to the beach? I guess I'll just have to worry about crossing that bridge when it comes. Or swimming past it, as it were.

I decide to stop for a short break and dig into my pocket in search of the—

What the hell?

Where is it?

What happened to that notepad I was writing in?

Shit. I must have left it somewhere back on the other side. I put my glasses back on and I think I can see a tiny ray of sunlight reflecting off something near the campsite. That must be it. How the hell did it even end up there? I certainly don't remember dropping it.

Oh well. It's not like I would have gone through that climb a second time over a stupid notepad that nobody's going to notice or read anyway. If Reyes needs me to get anything else while I'm on the ship I'll have to remember it the even-older-fashioned way. Got to keep moving forward.

Once my muscles are sufficiently rested I pocket my glasses again and pull out the axe. I look out across the sea to what's left of the _Endurance _as it waits for the ocean to swallow it all the way down to its final resting place, and I pause to silently reflect. For me, seeing Roth's once-proud ship reduced to ruin off the coast of Yamatai is like watching a wrecking ball knock down the house your family used to take summer vacations in. I wonder how it must have felt for Roth. He probably would have assured me that "it's only a ship," that he could always get himself another, but after all those years and so many experiences with it, he had to have seen that ship as something more than just a means of getting from point A to point B.

I guess I'll never know that answer now. But while I know how morbid this sounds, I suppose it's fitting that Roth died on this island. After all, the captain always goes down with his ship, doesn't he?

I hook the axe around the rope leading to the _Endurance_ and brace myself for one last zip line. Now that my destination is finally within reach, I'm honestly pretty surprised that I even made it this far. Sam's the only other member of the crew with as little experience as I have. By all rights, I should have been dead a long time ago. Hell, it probably shouldn't have been me coming out here to begin with, even if we assume that Lara was planning on taking a well-deserved break. A week ago, I wouldn't have _considered_ doing this. I like to think I'm a pretty self-aware guy, but I never would have thought myself capable of what I've done here.

And yet here I am. Part of me is feeling rather impressed by that. The other part is kind of terrified.

I take a few steps toward the edge of the cliff. I'm still freaked out over the long drop to the water; this is going to be a _long_ trip and I hope like hell that my arms can handle it. For the first time, though, I find myself pushing off without as much of the usual anxiety. I just faced off against a whole bunker's worth of trained killers and all I got were some scratches from jumping and climbing all over the place. I'll be damned if I'm going to let a really long rope beat me after all the shit I've been through today.

I keep a white-knuckle grip on the axe handle as the wind rushes into my face at about a zillion miles per hour. It's hard to keep my eyes open even just to squint, but I can see the ship rapidly growing closer. And for a while, I'm actually kind of enjoying the ride and I forget that I'm about fifty feet above the ocean. Who would have thought?

It's too bad I took my glasses off, because then I'd have noticed the Solarii standing outside on the deck. I know they're there now because I can hear their bullets starting to whiz past my ear.

Thankfully, they all seem to be terrible shots. (What is it with bad guys and bad aim, anyway? Is it contagious or something?) But the longer I keep zip-lining, the closer I get to the ship and the larger a target the guys on the deck will have.

I look down at the water, then back up at the ever-approaching ship. I hear more bullets passing by and they're getting dangerously close. Only one thing I can do now.

_Relax, Alex! It's just like cliff diving!_

Wait, that doesn't make me feel any better at all! I've never been cliff diving before!

_This is gonna suck._

Now that sounds about right.

I let go of the axe and plummet into the sea.

I clench my eyes shut and stay underwater as long as I can; maybe if I'm lucky the guards will all think I'm dead. Finally my lungs can't go any longer without air and I lift myself to the surface. I glance up toward the deck and am relieved to not see any guards looking for me. I start swimming toward the rocks cradling the wrecked ship.

I wonder how many of these guys are waiting for me aboard the wrecked _Endurance_. Why did they even go there in the first place? Did they want to steal Lara's iPod or something? Not that I'd blame them if they did, because based on what little I've heard of Lara's library she seems to have pretty good taste in music. And for the record, I've only ever heard her music because she'll play it on her laptop speakers whenever her iPod battery dies. Maybe if I happen to stumble across the iPod while I'm here I could always give it back to her later.

Yeah, I can envision _that_ going over real well.

* * *

_("Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert starts playing in the background.)  
_

**YOURS TRULY: **Hey Lara! Sorry I couldn't find the stuff we need to fix our only ride out of here, but at least I got your busted waterlogged iPod back!

**LARA: **I love you, Alex! Now let's make love on the beach to songs from _In Rainbows_ before we're inevitably brutally murdered, like that couple in every slasher film ever made!

**BOTH OF US:** _(hugging)_ BEST TRIP EVER!

* * *

For the love of God, Alex, get your priorities straight already. Just manage to avoid drowning for now.

Back to the nagging question at hand: what are the Solarii doing on the _Endurance_? Well, for starters, they probably figured a guy like me would sneak aboard in hopes of finding something useful. Or maybe they're just looking for useful stuff themselves. Ask a stupid question…

Still, you'd think if they were able to find our ship, they would have found our camp by now. It's not like the camp is very far from what's left of the _Endurance._ Maybe they've always known where we were and have just been lulling us into a false sense of security, which would mean that they could ambush us and kidnap Sam again whenever they please.

Speaking of Sam, this whole ordeal has had me wondering if she really _is_ a descendant of the Sun Queen. And all this time I thought she was only joking.

I pull myself up onto the nearest rock and take a few minutes to catch my breath. My zip-line axe is gone, but I doubt I'll need that anymore. My glasses are still in my pocket, and I know I'll still need those. My radio is still clamped to my jeans too. Good thing it's waterproof. I should call the others and let them know I made it here.

"Okay, Reyes," I say to the radio. "I'm getting close to the _Endurance._ What do you need exactly?"

"Alex! We were getting worried." I guess I'd better not tell Reyes how I got here, then. "I'm gonna need a breaker bar and the rest of my kit. I can't fix this boat without them."

"All right," I say as confidently as I can. "I'm on it."

"Lara is heading your way," Reyes says. "You should wait for her."

Holy shit, that girl just _never_ stops.

I wonder if she's listening to the radio chatter. I actually hope she is. I need to let her know that I can handle this on my own. I want her to see that I'm not useless.

"No," I blurt out. "No, I got this."

In my defense, that was a textbook example of Hemingway's "iceberg theory" in action. Give your audience minimal information. Let them discover the rest for themselves.

Or maybe I'm just an idiot with the communication skills of a fucking Neanderthal. Either explanation is plausible.

"I'm heading in," I announce. "Going radio silent."

Here goes nothing.

I get back in the water and start swimming toward the ship, keeping my head above the surface as best I can so I can see where I'm going. The wreck of the _Endurance_ looks even worse as I approach it from the side; I hadn't taken the time to notice, but the ship's been split right down the middle. It's only then that a somewhat important question suddenly occurs to me – was the engine room toward the front or the back? Question number two follows quickly: Why the hell couldn't I have thought of that five minutes ago, when I could have just asked Reyes? The engine room was always more her turf than mine, but I couldn't have forgotten my way around this ship already, could I?

Then again, I suppose that whole "trying to stay alive" thing could be a decent excuse for becoming all scatterbrained.

I decide to try the front half of the ship first and swim cautiously toward it. My brain keeps trying to diagram the floor plan of the _Endurance_ along the way. Let's see… there's the upper deck, obviously. The second deck had all our bunks and the kitchen and bathrooms. And the next one down from that… must be where I need to go. The only level beneath that is the bilge – that's sailor-speak for "basement" – and I know the engine isn't _that_ far down. That would be too convenient for me. It would also be pretty lousy shipbuilding.

I pull myself up into the bilge and rest for a moment against the wall as the sea breeze rushes through. There's a beam extending from the third deck, so I jump for it. I grab hold of the beam, shimmy over to the deck, and climb up.

And then, as I look around the hallway, my blood runs ice cold.

I was wrong. The engine room was on the other side of the ship. This half of the _Endurance_ is where all the cargo holds were.

"Shit," I mumble to myself.

Well, all isn't lost just yet. Maybe Reyes was wrong. Maybe someone brought her tools over here before the storm hit. Probably not, but as long as I'm here I might as well take a look.

I make my way through the hallway and quickly look around in each cargo hold. It's not a very thorough method, but Reyes likes leaving her toolbox out in the open, so if I don't spot it right away there's a 99 percent chance it's not in the room. Naturally there's no sign of the tools anywhere, which means they must be in the engine room, just as Reyes had said.

So how the hell am I going to get over there? Am I really going to have to swim to the other side just to climb back up? The waves have gotten noticeably rougher since I've been here. Couldn't there be a quicker way to do this?

I head back to where I'd entered and look around for some way to the other side that doesn't involve taking a swan dive from here. And then I spot it – there's a rope extending from the second deck all the way to the back half of the _Endurance_.

This brings me straight to the next problem. How am I going to cross the rope? I've been zip-lining across them with an axe this whole time, but I lost it when I dropped off the rope during my trip to the ship. So where can I find another?

Fortunately it doesn't take long for that light bulb to go off. I'm pretty sure there was an axe on the second deck in one of those glass cases that you're only supposed to break in case of fire. I remember asking Grim once why we would need an axe if nothing on the ship was made of wood. He chuckled and said, "A fire axe can do more than just cutting wood, lad."

He probably couldn't have anticipated anyone needing it for this though.

So that's the plan. Just get upstairs and somehow take the fire axe and reach the rope without anyone noticing. Easier said than done, but so was everything else I've done today. I turn around and start hurrying down the hallway toward the ladder at the end.

That is, until I spot someone starting to come down the ladder. Shit. And here I am armed only with a waterlogged pistol that probably won't fire.

Wait. Actually, that's not true. I check my pockets and sure enough, the knife is still there. In a way, I guess that's better. A gun may be quick, but a knife is quiet. I definitely don't want to attract any attention to myself, considering I have no idea how many of the Solarii are here. I rush over to the nearest room, lean against the wall beside the door, and flick out the blade.

"This probably won't take long," the guy on the ladder says. Double shit. There's someone else upstairs. "I doubt we'll need anything else down here. I just want to make sure we don't miss anything important." He pauses, probably because whoever's upstairs is saying something. "Don't worry, I'll keep my eyes peeled for that guy."

Oh, great. Somebody must have seen me swimming here. There aren't strong enough expletives in _any_ human language to properly express my feelings about this.

I listen for the cultist's footsteps as he explores the hall and gradually makes his way toward my hiding spot. The crashing waves outside make this a little more difficult than I'd like, but after a few minutes I can hear him on the other side of the wall.

He's going to check this room. I'll have to act real fast.

As soon as he walks through the door I grab him. I throw my hand over his mouth and cut his throat. His blood feels warm against my hand as I gently lower his body to the floor.

"Hey, did you find anything yet?" his buddy calls.

No answer, of course. The dead guy has a pistol with some extra ammo, so I swap my gun for his, tuck it into my waistband, and wipe my hand on his uniform.

_Out, damned spot. Out, I say._

"Hello?" the second cultist says. "Can you hear me? Is everything all right down there?"

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I've already got an idea for how to get rid of this guy. I leave the room, sneak over near the ladder, and wait.

"What the fuck is going on?" the guy mumbles. I can see his feet on the rungs as he starts climbing down.

I don't let him finish. I grab him by the ankles and yank him straight down. There are a couple loud bangs as his head smacks against the rungs, and I back off a bit just before he hits the ground with a solid thud. He starts rolling over and I can see blood leaking from his mouth. Then I grab the ladder to balance myself and start stomping and stomping and stomping and stomping and stomping right on his face. I don't stop until there's a mushy red mess where the guy's head used to be.

I back away from the ladder for a moment and listen for any more footsteps approaching it. The only sound I hear is the waves, so I figure it's safe. I've been getting kind of lucky so far, what with only running into two or three guys at a time, tops. My latest kill (jeez, now I'm starting to sound like Jeffrey Dahmer or somebody) has a sawed-off shotgun slung over his back. I'm not usually too fond of these – they're basically only effective for short-range shots – but I take it anyway, wincing at the mess I just made as I remove it. I sling it over my back and climb the ladder.

As I pull myself up to the second deck I glance around the hallway in search of – _oh, shit_. There's a guy on patrol a few feet away. He's not facing me, but he makes a curious humming sound as if he heard me coming up.

So I charge right at him.

He turns around just in time for my fist to meet his face. He staggers toward the wall and throws his hands out to meet it. Conveniently, he does it right at a glass case with a sign above it reading "IN CASE OF FIRE, BREAK GLASS" in big bold uppercase letters and an axe inside.

Well, isn't this nice. Two birds with one stone.

I grab the back of the cultist's head and smash the glass with his face. Some of it breaks, but not enough to pull the axe out without cutting myself, so I pull the man's head back and shove it into the rest of the glass. That ought to do the trick.

I throw the cultist to the ground and pull out the axe as he moans in pain. He's got cuts all over his face and little jagged bits of glass stuck here and there in his flesh. Oh God, it looks there's a piece in his left eye. That's just nasty.

Not as nasty as the big gash I leave in his stomach with the axe though. That somehow still isn't enough to finish the job, so I hack at him again and he finally goes motionless.

I fall back against the wall for a moment to take a few deep breaths, but I can't stop. That probably made some noise. I have to get out of here, so I grab the axe and—

What the hell?

Oh, _come on._

Fucking thing is stuck in the guy's rib cage. I can't wait until this day is over.

I put my foot on the dead man's chest (yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum) and tug as hard as I can on the axe until I finally dislodge it. There's an open door not far down the hall, so I go inside in case anyone should come looking for me.

A few minutes go by and nobody shows up, which strikes me as incredibly odd. How can I be wreaking all this havoc down here without anyone noticing? Not that I'm complaining, but I'm getting pretty close to the upper deck, which is where I assume the rest of the Solarii are. And that Boris guy, whoever the hell he is.

I look around the room for something I can use and spot an unfamiliar device sitting on a desk in the back near a window. I walk over to inspect it and immediately recognize it as a radio transmitter, but it doesn't look like anything we had been using. It must belong to the Solarii. Why they chose this room, of all places, to set this up is beyond me, but here it is. So I pull out the shotgun and blast it. Sparks shoot out of the transmitter to announce its demise. Try sending reinforcements now, you stupid—

Wait. You know what? Now that I think about it, I probably shouldn't have done that. One: I just made a lot of noise. Two (and this is kind of the big one): If these guys hadn't already noticed that I was here, the sudden loss of their radio signals would be a huge red flag that they couldn't be stupid enough to ignore.

The short version: I have to get out of here.

I hurry out of the room and start running down the hall toward the rope – and skid to a halt once I hear someone, or rather some_thing_, climbing down a ladder behind me.

"Settle down up there," a strong Russian accent says. "I can handle this myself."

I turn and point my shotgun but am too freaked out by what I'm seeing to do anything else. A giant steps down from the ladder and stares right at me, pounding his fist into his palm. He's completely covered in body armor from the neck down and his neck is covered with a thick beard.

Aww, look at this – baby's first boss fight. I should take a picture of this guy and put it on my Christmas tree. And come to think of it, the beard kind of makes him look like an evil twin of jolly old Saint Nicholas.

"Well, well, well," he snarls. "The stowaway lives."

I pump my shotgun as I listen to the excited reactions from above.

"Aww, shit! This is going to be good!"

"I _knew_ that prick was still alive!"

"Kick his ass, Boris!"

_That's _Boris?

Holy shit. I think I liked him better when I didn't know who he was. That's not a man, that's a fucking tank with a face.

As I stand there with my shotgun pointed and panting heavily with anxiety, Boris just takes a few steps forward and chuckles.

"Go on, you foolish boy," he says. "Take your best shot."

I aim right for that ugly face of his and pull the trigger – and he _blocks_ the shot!

You've got to be _kidding_ me! What the fuck? He _blocked_ it?

How the hell did he do that? What is this guy, a fucking Jedi Knight or something? Well, I call bullshit! Nobody has reflexes that fast!

He takes a few steps toward me. I pump the gun again, and fire again – and he blocks it again.

Oh, great. And here I was thinking it might have been my imagination.

I pump once more, and this time I shoot at his torso in hopes of piercing the armor. No dice.

Boris laughs at me again and reaches over with a big grimy fist. He grabs me by the neck and hoists me into the air and _I can't fucking breathe—_

"You've been quite the nuisance today," Boris says. "How many of my brothers have you killed?"

He punches me hard in my stomach. As if it wasn't hard enough to breathe already.

"Are you keeping score?" he continues. "Do you people think this is some kind of game? Do you think you are _better_ than the Solarii?"

He punches me again.

"Why resort to all this bloodshed?" he says. "To escape this island? A place you cannot escape so long as Himiko also remains a prisoner?"

"We do it to survive," I croak.

"So do we," Boris counters. "But mostly we do it to free Himiko."

He punches me one more time. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

"What a shame that it had to come to this," he says. "You see, all you _idiots_ had to do was hand us the Sun Queen's heir and we might have let you go."

"Bullshit."

"Call it what you will," Boris says with a smug smirk. "It doesn't matter now. Now, you are _all_ dead men walking."

With that, he tosses me like a rag doll down the hall toward the sea. I hit the ground hard and roll to a stop about ten feet from the edge. I'm lucky neither of my guns went off.

"First it was the old man," Boris boasts. "Then we took your captain. I'm afraid it's your turn now, boy." He laughs at me once more as I lift myself to a kneeling position and pick up my shotgun. "You've got a lot of fight in you though. I can respect that. So I'll give you a chance for some famous last words."

Dumb bastard. Hasn't he ever seen an action movie? Any time the villain spends showing off instead of killing the hero is time the hero spends figuring out how to beat him.

But how am _I_ supposed to beat _him?_ Like I said, the guy is a walking tank. It's not like I've got any Stinger missiles that I can fire into his knees, like in—

Wait a minute.

Oh my God, that's it.

"Is there anything you'd like to say?" Boris asks, folding his arms and putting that stupid smug smirk back on his face.

"Yeah," I answer with a smirk of my own. "You ever play _Metal Gear Solid 2_?"

"What?"

I roll my eyes. "Oh, never mind."

I raise the shotgun and blast him in the knee.

Boris falls to the ground, hollering in pain. Try blocking your face now, asshole.

I aim for his head and pull the trigger once more – and nothing happens.

Shit! I have _got_ to do a better job keeping track of my fucking ammo.

Upstairs Boris's comrades start chattering nervously about how the big guy just got shot. I can hear footsteps starting to gather around the ladder. Well, so much for sticking around long enough to finish him off. I drop the shotgun, pull out the fire axe, and sprint for the rope.

"After him!" Boris bellows.

I leap off the edge and hook the axe around the rope. I grip the handle with both hands as I zip-line across the crashing waves to the other half of the _Endurance_. As soon as my feet touch the ground I drop the axe and look back. Boris's men haven't even started making their way across the rope, but that doesn't mean I plan on waiting for them.

I spot some words on the wall pointing me toward the crew's quarters, which means I still have to get downstairs. So I hurry down the hallway and hang a right at the end—

And I almost fall into the third deck. The floor on the second deck must have caved in when the ship wrecked, and I can see some water leaking into the hallway below. But it's still great news for me, because now I remember that this path will lead me straight to the engine room. This is the best thing that's happened to me in at least the last few hours.

I jump down into the third deck and land with a light splash. The water isn't deep enough to hinder my progress, so I'm able to just rush right through. Hopefully it can stay that way until after I've made the return trip.

Finally, after spending the entire day on foot, leaping and climbing across a nautical graveyard, sneaking my way through a dark and musty bunker, zip-lining across the sea, swimming to the ship, and taking out nearly a dozen evil cultists who've been trained and ordered to shoot me on sight, I have reached the engine room of the _Endurance_. But as much as I'd love to just sit down, relax, and bask in my achievement, I still have a job to do.

The engine room is cluttered with pieces of the ceiling and broken or twisted metal, with gas leaking from canisters and some of the big pipes along the walls. There's a ladder to a catwalk which leads to the second deck, which would seem to be my safest bet out of here once I get the tools unless I find some way to climb back up the way I came. Reyes's toolbox is in the complete opposite corner of the room from where I entered, naturally. I open it up to see if everything she needs is still inside. There aren't many tools in the box, and for a moment I wonder if the Solarii have already been here and taken all the most important stuff. The breaker bar is still there, along with a couple of wrenches and screwdrivers. I guess if Reyes needs a hammer, she'll just have to settle for a rock. Or Whitman's head. I kind of prefer the second option.

And that's it. That's the entire haul I've been busting my ass and risking my life for all day. There's something I find strangely hilarious about this.

What isn't so hilarious is the sound of unfamiliar voices echoing softly through the engine room. It looks like Boris's men have caught up with me. I pocket the tools – the one nice thing about losing the notepad is definitely the increased pocket space – and pull out my pistol. I sneak around the back of the engine toward the entrance.

I see someone run out on the catwalk and fire a couple rounds into his chest. His momentum carries him forward and he tumbles over the guardrail, dropping to the floor like a stone in water.

_Railing kill!_

Then I look back the way I came in just in case anyone else happened to follow in my footsteps. Sure enough, there are two guys splashing through the hall. I take cover and reload as I wait for them to come out.

Once their footsteps become solid thumps I step out and shoot the first moving thing I see. He falls to the ground clutching his leg, and I take cover again as the second guy starts shooting back at me. He hides behind the wall to reload, so I peek out and finish off the injured man.

Now I hear someone on the catwalk again. I take a quick glance and there's a guy with an assault rifle pointed at me. I dive out of the way as he fires.

He misses me – but he hits a gas leak instead.

The gas explodes, sending shock waves all through the engine room. I can feel the ship sliding off the rocks a bit more and hear more water starting to flood into the third deck. Pipes and canisters and various other chunks of rubble go crashing to the ground.

By now the guy who shot the gas is gone, so I try to get up and run for the ladder. But then the ship sinks a little more, and I stumble and fall on my right shoulder. There's a loud creaking noise overhead and I quickly roll on my back and scoot backwards as a big piece of the ceiling collapses to the floor inches in front of my feet. I keep going a few more inches until my back smacks against a pile of rubble.

Just as I'm about to get up again, there's another loud noise from above. A huge red pipe plummets from the ceiling. It's headed straight for me.

And I'm not quick enough to get away this time.

The pipe lands hard on my left leg and I hear my shin bones completely _snap_. It is without a doubt the worst fucking pain I have ever felt in my life. Far worse than the time I fell out of that tree – at least that was only a fracture. The screams shred my vocal cords and my eyes start tearing up a little.

As the initial rush of pain starts to subside a little I glance around the room, panting hard and trying to figure out which of the Solarii will get to finish me off. But nobody's there except the two lifeless bodies I'd shot earlier. It looks like the other two guys decided to just get the hell out of here and leave me for dead. Either that, or Boris told them he wanted to do the honors himself.

I try to move the pipe off my leg, but the damn thing is way too heavy and won't move an inch. If I'm going to get out of here, I'll need some help. And something tells me the two guys outside won't be offering any time soon. I reach for my radio, but it's in pieces. It must have broken when I hit the ground.

Great. This is what I get for going radio silent. The one time I actually need to call someone, I can't. All I want to do right now is just tell Sam or Jonah or Reyes that I was wrong, I _haven't_ "got this," and I need somebody, _anybody_, to—

Hold it. Something's coming back to me.

It's Reyes's voice: "Lara is heading your way."

In all the commotion of the last few hours, I had completely forgotten about that. For the first time I hope Lara _wasn't_ listening to that call.

I wonder how she chose to come out here. Maybe she went with my first idea and built a raft. That would certainly solve the whole "how to get back to camp" dilemma. But the reason I came the way I did was because I thought—

Oh my God. I hope I was wrong about that. Please don't tell me she actually went through that fucking bunker. Not after all the chaos I caused. Not with all those reinforcements Boris sent over there.

God _damn_ it! I was _so fucking close! _I made it all the way out here! I have the damn tools! And now none of that even matters, because I can't leave!

Now Lara's on her way to hopefully drag my useless ass back to camp. Because, you know, apparently she just hasn't done enough for me already. She helped me study, she got me this job, she taught me how to shoot, she's even _saved my fucking life_ – and what the hell have I done in return? I'm going to get her killed, that's what.

Yeah, that sounds like a real fair trade.

I know she can take care of herself – she's better at it than I could ever hope to be. But she's not invincible. If anything happens to her because she came out here to help me, I swear to God I will _never_ forgive myself. And there's not a damn thing I can do about anything now except sit here, stare at the giant Escape key on my T-shirt, and laugh bitterly at myself for being such a fucking hipster.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

The second half of this chapter was the toughest part of this story to write; once Alex drops off the zip line I couldn't just follow the game anymore. Letting him screw up and search the wrong half of the ship really bit me in the ass. Navigating him through the _Endurance_ when you don't see much of it in the game was a major pain. The first half, on the other hand… that part was too easy. And yes, that also goes for the massive semi-coherent pseudo-stream-of-consciousness wall of angst that is paragraph 6.

The quote at the top of this page comes from "Slow Show" by the National.

**Fun Fact #1:** Hemingway's "iceberg theory" is all about subtlety and subtext. There's a lot of stuff going on in his work that isn't on the page. He believed that if you know enough details about the story you're telling, then you can let the reader use what you've written as a guide to figure out what you _could_ be telling them but _aren't_. I mention this because there are moments in this fic where I wanted to try my hand at it, like the beginning of Chapter 3. I'm not nearly good (or subtle) enough to do it for long though.

**Fun Fact #2:** And now my theory for how Alex got to the _Endurance_ has been revealed in full. In the game when you go to rescue him you overhear someone talking about finding him in the water trying to board the ship. But if he just swims there, then how does his journal end up at the campsite you find outside the bunker? It took a while to reconcile these things, but then I reached a conclusion that had been staring me in the face all along: Maybe he went the same way you did, but he didn't make it all the way across the zip line.

**Fun Fact #3:** In the game, Alex only implies that he has a crush on Lara and nothing stronger than that, but I figured he _should_ have a stronger motivation than that. And of course I don't just mean an overwhelming desire to feel useful, which he expressed in Chapter 2. One does not simply walk into certain life-threatening peril over a simple crush. But it's remarkable what levels of insanity a person can reach once that magic L word gets involved.

Four chapters down, one to go. Will I stick to canon or write an alternate ending? You'll find out soon enough.


	5. Superman

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** "You are who you choose to be."

* * *

**CHAPTER 5: SUPERMAN**

Have you ever played "Corrupt a Wish"? It's pretty popular on Internet forums among people with nothing else to talk about, and the rules are quite simple. The first player makes a wish – it doesn't really matter what they're wishing for, and given the nature of the game perhaps it's better to _not_ state their deepest desire and say instead that they'd really like a beer or something. The second player then grants that wish, but only under a condition that renders the desired thing completely undesirable. After that, lather, rinse, and repeat for each player. Allow me to demonstrate how a typical round of "Corrupt a Wish" might work.

* * *

_("Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert starts playing in the background.)_

**YOURS TRULY:** I wish I could do something to make the girl of my dreams notice me!

**EVERYONE ELSE ON YAMATAI:** Granted, but she will only notice because you've completely fucked everything up and made yourself look like a worthless and incompetent buffoon, WHICH YOU ARE.

**YOURS TRULY:** Fuck you, and fuck my life.

* * *

This is the worst idea I've ever had. I don't know what made me think I could do this on my own. I'm no action hero. I'm not even a competent sidekick. I'm Jeff Goldblum sitting at a fucking laptop.

No, you know what? At least he saved the world with his magical computer virus that somehow works on extraterrestrial technology. At best, I'm the dorky comic relief – I show up, say something mildly amusing, and nobody ever takes me seriously, least of all the beautiful English brunette who now has to clean up after me.

Actually, I'm not even _that_ anymore. Now, thanks to this stupid little misadventure, I've managed to reduce myself to "damsel in distress" status. I've never felt so powerless, so _helpless_, in my whole damn life. All I can do is just sit here waiting for my proverbial knight in shining armor to show up and save the day, hoping the bad guys don't kill her and honestly kind of wishing I could just chop off what's left of my leg and hop my way off this ship. Of course, that would probably leave some kind of blood trail that the bad guys could easily follow all the way back to me and whoever I'm with, whether it's just Lara or everyone else back at camp. For fuck's sake, even when I'm hypothetically doing something proactive, I'm a liability.

I have been stuck in the engine room under this really heavy pipe for what feels like an eternity. I think it must have actually been a couple hours by now. There aren't any windows and my watch is busted, so I have no idea how I'm supposed to tell.

It's funny, all the little things in life that you take for granted every day. Like being able to see the sky, or having someone to talk to. Or taking a class on a whim and ending up making life-altering friendships. Or your ex-roommate playing _Crypt Marauder_ and sending you a text message that reads, "Weiss, you magnificent bastard, I tried your code!"

Or the fast-growing smile on a pretty girl's face when she hears the DJ play a song she loves, and how she pulls you out to the dance floor in hopes of making her bathroom-bound best friend "sorry she missed this" after that friend had spent the last hour trying to make you both join the party. (Also that friend's reaction upon meeting you back at the bar, complete with priceless facial expression: "Wait, were you guys just… oh my God, I _hate _you!")

Or how the occasional increase in friction between your body and hers starts feeling less like what happens in a crowded nightclub and more like a possible seal of approval.

Or not having every bone from your left knee down likely shattered beyond repair. That one was a pretty nice luxury.

Despite my own situation looking rather grim at the moment, I am the last thing that's on my mind and as long as the Solarii stay away from here I'm going to keep it that way. My thoughts instead turn to everyone else. Reyes is probably shaking her head, reflecting on how she told that idiot to wait for the one competent survivor among us to show up. I can picture Jonah sitting at a small fire, cooking up some freshly caught fish to distract himself from wondering what the hell happened. Sam is either distraught over not being able to stop me or trying to crack a joke involving Apparition (my money's on the latter). Whitman, if he's even back at camp by now, is probably disappointed that he couldn't be here with his camera so he's plotting to interview my parents about my "tragic and untimely… _disappearance_." After all, the audience eats up tearful goodbyes. Right, Doc?

But mostly I think of Lara. My brain keeps playing a series of short movies where horrible things happen to her, gruesome things. Drawn-out suffering at the hands of the merciless Solarii, who lie and tell her it'll all be over soon as they tighten their hands around her throat or bury an axe in her torso. Painful accidents caused by simple bad luck or slow reaction – being crushed by boulders, falling from collapsing buildings, dropping into the sea because her zip-line broke, being gored through the neck by a huge fucking pole as she spends her last moments of consciousness desperately trying to pull herself off it—

My God! Why would I even _think_ about this shit? What the fuck is wrong with me?

Well, the answer to the first question is a lot shorter. Surely something must have happened to her. She would have been here sooner, right? Of course she would have. And if something did happen to her, no matter what it was, be it in my head or in the real world, it all comes back to the same thing: _This is my fault. I might as well have shot her myself._

And to think, I did this because I wanted to make her life a little _easier_. Great fucking job, Alex.

You know what? At this point, I want to see Lara even more than to find some way out of here without becoming an amputee. I just want to know that she's all right.

Part of me wants to call her on the radio and tell her to just leave me here. Gadget geeks like me grow on trees anyway; people like Lara don't. I remind myself that the others still need the tools in my hand.

Then, as I'm beginning to lose hope, I hear a familiar English accent on the other side of the blocked door.

"Alex! What's going on? Are you all right?"

And there she is – Wonder Woman to the rescue.

I'm not surprised that she made it, but I _am_ really fucking glad.

"I'm pinned down in here," I tell her. "It doesn't look good."

"Just hold on!" she says. "I'm going to get you out of there!"

I'm not even sure how she's going to get herself _in_ here. But at this point, I think I know better than to doubt Lara.

I hear a lot of banging and clanging outside. I can sort of see her with her bow and arrow running around pushing and pulling a crane all over the room. Looks like one hell of a workout.

"Check the ceiling," I advise her. "There should be an access hatch to the crawlspace."

Or at least I hope there is. What if it was destroyed during the storm? I have no idea what she'll do if – oh, never mind, it sounds like she found it. I can hear her footsteps inside the crawlspace.

I guess as long as she's here, there's something else I ought to tell her.

"Lara, I'm sorry for dragging you into this mess," I say. "I don't know what I was thinking coming out here."

_Bullshit, Alex. You know damn well why you did this. You just don't want Lara to laugh at you._

"I thought I could be the star of my own goddamned action movie," I admit. "Guess it doesn't always work out like that."

And the truth shall set you free – but only figuratively speaking, unfortunately. At least she didn't laugh. I'm pretty sure she's the only one I know who wouldn't.

I hear her kicking something loose, but whatever it is it isn't the thing blocking the doorway. It must be an even bigger mess out there than I thought _oh my fucking God my leg is killing me—_

"Oh God… Lara, I'm in bad shape!"

Understatement… of the…

Come on, man…

Stay awake…

"Got it!" she shouts. Got what? The thing that's blocking the door, or the thing that's apparently blocking the thing that's blocking the door? Whatever. Progress has been made. That's all that really counts.

"Great," I mumble. "Good… job… so sleepy…"

I hear her calling out to me but I can't really make out what she's saying because the pain in my leg keeps getting worse with each passing minute and it's so bad I can barely even see straight, and there's all this gas leaking into the room making it harder to breathe and I keep feeling dizzier and drowsier… come on, don't pass out, don't pass out, don't—

_BANG._

Well, that certainly woke me up.

There's a bright flash of sparks and suddenly the door is clear and Lara's rushing over to me. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see her in my life, and that is saying something. I hold up the tools in a mock-triumphant pose, like an Olympian pretending to celebrate winning the bronze.

"Oh, Alex," she says with a sad smile. "You got the tools…"

Yeah, I got them. At least this trip wasn't a _total_ waste, huh?

"Finally I impress you!" Wait a minute. Did I just say that out loud? I must be really delirious.

I spot something sticking out of her pocket as she inspects the pipe. It has a little brown cover and a metal coil binding dozens of – oh my God, she found my notepad. Of all the things she could have stumbled across in all the nooks and crannies on this entire island, she finds the journal that tells the world how I feel about her. I wonder if she read it.

Wait, of _course_ she read it. She couldn't have known what it was for, or that it was meant to be private, and whenever she finds something interesting or unusual she investigates it. She _is_ an archaeologist, after all.

Maybe it's better if she did read it. Would I ever have worked up the nerve to tell her in person?

Actually… hang on. Give me a minute on that.

You know what? If we make it back home, whether she read the journal or not, I'm going to tell her. Not right away – we'll all still need time to recover from the Yamatai clusterfuck first – but I _will_ say it face to face. Why the hell not? If there's one thing I've learned from this experience, it's this: There are worse things that can happen to a man than being shot down by a beautiful woman.

"Let's get you out of here," Lara says.

We try to lift the pipe off my leg but even with two of us it won't budge _and holy fuck now my leg hurts even worse—_

"Sorry, sorry!"

It's all right. You don't have to apologize. It's not like you dropped this pipe on my leg.

"Well," I tell her, "looks like my dance career is over."

She laughs a little. That's good.

It occurs to me for some reason that I've never heard Lara really _laugh_ before. I've heard small amused laughs like this from her, but never a full belly laugh, the kind that forces tears out of your eyes and leaves you gasping for air and feeling sore in your abdomen, and now I'm wondering what her version of that sounds like. It'll be worth getting through this just to hear that. For now I'll settle for being able to make her smile, even just a little bit, in spite of the near-constant trauma she's been dealing with all this time.

"Hey, I just thought of something," I say as she continues her investigation. "Assuming we can get this thing off my leg, how are we getting out of here?"

"With this," she says, and holds up a rope ascender. "I got it from a large Russian man covered in body armor and hideous facial hair."

"You killed Boris?" I ask.

She isn't exactly proud of slaying the beast. "Was that his name?" she murmurs.

"Yeah," I answer. "So, uh, how long before you figured out to start with the knees?"

She looks surprised by this. "Um… several tries, actually. You met him too?"

"Pretty annoying, wasn't he?" I say. "The bastard cost me all my shotgun ammo." She doesn't seem to feel any better, so I change the subject. "What else can we do?"

Her eyes dart around the room in search of something, _anything_, that could possibly be of use.

"Do you think we could roll it off?" I suggest. "I mean, yeah, the pain will be pretty excruciating, but it's not like my leg isn't already broken, you know?"

"Bad idea," she says, shaking her head. "That would take way too long, and who knows how much damage it would do?"

Objection sustained. I don't know why I thought steamrolling this pipe off my leg would be reasonable. It isn't even the most desperate idea I have in mind right now.

"Maybe we could push it off _that_ way," Lara says, pointing toward my left. "Would we have enough space?"

I look over at the other end of the pipe. "I don't know," I answer. "I guess it's worth a try."

She crouches awkwardly and grips the rim. "This is going to hurt," she says.

"I'm counting on it."

She thrusts herself forward as hard as she can, leading mostly with her shoulder and occasionally falling back into her crouch to generate more power. Another wave of pain shoots through my leg as the pipe grinds on my shin and scrapes across the floor and I bite my shirt to muffle my groaning. Then it hits a wall a few inches away and Lara stumbles from the impact. I reach out to help keep her balance – her forward momentum plus the angle she's facing as she pushes equals her possibly landing directly on my groin.

But hey, at least I'd be distracted from that whole "broken leg" thing for a while.

"I guess we didn't have enough room," I astutely observe as she sits next to me to catch her breath.

"It's too bad that crane can't reach all the way over here," Lara says, looking back from where she came and panting hard from all that shoving. "We could have just stuck the hook inside and let the machine do the rest."

"I don't know. That's a pretty big hole and there isn't really anything for the hook to grip. It would probably just fall right out. And I saw those sparks, so… I wouldn't mess with it."

She grits her teeth and pounds the floor in frustration. "Damn it! There's got to be _some_ way to get you out! I can't just leave you here!"

Oh, I have an idea. I really didn't want to play this card, but we're quickly running out of both time and options.

"Lara?"

"What?"

"Cut it off."

"_What?_"

"My leg," I say, trying to minimize the nervous vibrato of my voice. "Just get your axe and cut the damn thing off."

Her eyes and mouth both go wide at the idea. "Are you serious?"

"Better to live without it than die here in one piece. At least I still have the spare." I chuckle nervously at that.

"And how would we stop the bleeding?" she asks.

"Just wrap my shirt around it and tie it off with… um…"

"Mine."

"Huh?"

"We can roll my shirt up and tie it around your leg," she says, and starts lifting her tank top, showing her perfectly toned (and cut, scratched, and bruised) midriff.

"Are you sure about that?"

"I appreciate the chivalry," she says, "but saving you comes first, so—"

She almost has her tank top pulled over her head – and then she suddenly stops.

"Wait," she says. "No. I can't do this."

"What? Why not?"

"We would have to get you to a doctor immediately," she explains, pulling her shirt back down. "If we don't, you… you won't make it to morning."

"Hey," I assure her, "everything worked out all right for that mountain climber who cut his own arm off."

"Alex, Himiko won't let us leave! Remember?"

I do now.

"Fuck!" I shout through gritted teeth, and now it's my turn to punch the floor. In my desperate rush to find a way out of this jam, I had somehow completely forgotten about the Sun Queen. The only thing Himiko hates more than having visitors is letting them go home.

I had also forgotten that Lara has a pickaxe, which isn't exactly ideal for amputation situations. I imagine it would be like trying to cut a steak with a toothpick.

"I'm sorry," she says, "but I can't take that chance." She looks down at the ground as if she can't bear to look me in the eye anymore. "I've got far too much blood on my hands as it is."

"So do I," I admit.

She looks up at me once more. "You do, don't you?"

"Well, how else could I have made it here in one piece?" I ask with a half-hearted smirk that's quick to disappear when I notice the look on her face.

"I hate this place," she says just above a whisper.

"Me too." As much as I'd love to give her a hug and tell her she'll be all right, I don't think I can twist my body enough to reach her. Might as well refocus on the task at hand. "So, uh, _now_ what do we do?"

She starts scanning the floor and rooting through some of the wreckage around me. "Just look for some kind of plank or bar or something. Maybe we can wedge it under the pipe and pry it up."

There's not much within my reach, but I look around anyway and I don't see anything. I glance to my right and see Lara bending over the rubble looking for something on the other side, the pickaxe slung around her back and—

_The pickaxe!_

I see her pause as if she's reading my mind. "Wait a minute – we can use this!" she says, pulling the pickaxe out from behind her back. "I should have thought of this sooner…"

She comes over, kneels beside me, and wedges the blunt end of the pickaxe under the side of the pipe. It hurts like a motherfucker, but I don't really care.

"Okay," Lara says, standing up and gripping the handle, "on the count of three, I'm going to start lifting."

"All right," I say, putting my hands under the pipe on either side of the pickaxe.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to help you with this," I tell her.

Her rebuttal is gentle, not scolding. "Alex… you don't have to do that. I can handle this on my own."

"I know. But I want to anyway."

A little smile starts to form, but she gets right back on track. "So how are you getting your leg out?"

"Well, once I have enough room I'll just… _twist_ around like this" – I twist my body to the right to demonstrate – "and _drag_ my leg out until it's clear."

"Sounds like a plan," she says. "You ready?"

"Sure," I answer. "It's not like I've got anything else to do."

She looks over at me and laughs once more. "All right, wise guy," she says. "On three – one… two… _three!"_

She pushes down on the pickaxe as hard as she can while I push up from under the pipe. My leg throbs in pain, but the harder we work the more I can feel the pipe getting lighter.

Thank God. Maybe now I can finally—

Whoa. Hold on. I think I hear something.

What's going on over there?

I look over my right shoulder and see something moving in the distance.

_Oh, fuck._

"Alex, what's going on?" Lara asks.

She doesn't even know? Wait, how _could_ she? She's standing with her back to the entrance.

She's _standing_ – if we don't get rid of this pipe soon, she'll be…

No. We almost have enough room to free my leg. We can still do this, right?

Are we going to have enough time?

"We got her!"

I reach over as far as I can, ignore the soreness ripping through my left side as the pipe drops back down on my leg, and grab Lara by the waistband of her pants—

"Get down!" I shout, and I yank her to the ground.

And now there are people shooting at us. Fuck. That's _not_ good. I pull out my pistol and check to make sure it's still loaded.

I guess we didn't kill all of Boris's men. But how the hell did they find us so fast? I destroyed their radio transmitter. Nobody knows about me except the people who were already here. Did they hear Lara moving that crane around and making all that noise?

No, it couldn't be that. There's so much noise in the ship already. So what if there's a crane banging around in one room? The ship is on the verge of sinking. There's shit banging around everywhere.

So what could…

How did they—

Wait a minute.

The realization hits me harder than the pipe that crushed my leg.

No.

Oh God, no.

They wanted this. They've planned it, haven't they?

Those bastards who followed me here knew I was pinned down in the engine room this whole time. I killed two of them. But there's no way the other two _didn't_ tell their comrades about me before Lara could find them.

So why am I still alive?

I could kick myself for not realizing this sooner. It's because they wanted to use me as _bait._

They used me to get to Lara.

_Like hell you will, motherfuckers._

I aim at a gas leak near the catwalk and shoot it as Lara takes cover. It causes an explosion, just as I thought it would. Takes out three or four of them at once.

It also weakens the already shattered hull even more. Another blast like that might finally sink it.

"What are you doing?" Lara shouts over the gunfire. "You'll kill us!"

I look back at her, and time seems to slow down for a moment as our eyes meet.

"What do you mean, _us?_" I ask.

Hey Lara, remember that question you asked me at Roth's funeral? Here's my _real_ answer: Of course you're worth it.

"I'm not going to make it out of here, Lara," I say. "Take the tools."

"Not without you!"

"Hey," I say with a fake smile, "how often does a guy like me get to be a hero?"

Another wave of guys with guns arrives and I blindly return their fire as Lara sits next to me with her back up against a huge piece of debris. If she doesn't get out of here soon we'll _both_ go down with this ship and all our friends will be screwed.

"Nowhere to run!" someone yells.

Come on, Lara. You've already done so much for me and for all the others. Let me return the favor, just this once.

"The others are counting on us," I say.

I hold out the tools and put on the bravest face I can possibly muster even though I'm completely fucking terrified. I don't think she'll buy it.

"Go!" I shout.

She's not going.

She sits there with her mouth slightly open like she wants to say something, but she doesn't know what, so all she can do is just shake her head and stare at me with those striking brown eyes of hers, eyes that look like they're begging me: _Please don't do this. I can't lose anyone else._ I doubt I'd be able to keep it together if she starts to cry.

I know, Lara. I'm tearing open old wounds – no, I'm cutting deeper into _fresh_ wounds and pouring some salt on them for good measure.

I'm so sorry. I really am. But I don't have a choice.

"Now!" I demand.

She still hesitates. Then she gently takes the tools from my hand. There you go.

She leans over and puts her hand on my left cheek…

And then she kisses me.

Is it possible for your heart to skip a beat and completely sink at the exact same time? Shit, I guess it is.

I wish I'd known she was going to do that. I wish I had some kind of magic remote control in my hand so I could pause the universe right now and whisper everything I want to tell her in her ear:

_Hey… I know things have been rough these last few days. I wouldn't wish all the shit you've gone through on my worst enemy. I know you'll probably never be the same after this is over._

_But I hope you don't change too much. I hope you still geek out every time you find some ancient relic or solve a mystery that nobody else could figure out in thousands of years. I hope you still view the world as a beautiful, exciting place just waiting to be explored and understood, and that you're still the kind of person who'll go to the ends of the earth just to help a friend in need – even an idiot like me._

_I hope you stop blaming yourself for everything that happened here. But most of all, no matter what happens from now on, I want you to be happy. You're the coolest person I've ever met. You at least deserve that much._

_Keep being awesome, Lara._

Yeah, that's what I should have said to her. Well, give or take another three words.

It's not like I have time for that now though. And on second thought, if I had that hypothetical magic remote, I'd hit rewind and at least stop myself from being crushed under this fucking pipe in the first place.

She runs like hell out of the room as I give covering fire. Meanwhile the guys with guns just keep on coming. The Solarii are too busy paying attention to me to notice her escape.

That's right. Come and get me. Might be nice to have a little company in Davy Jones's Locker.

I get shot. Somehow it hurts even worse than my leg. But that doesn't really matter anymore. I just hope I've bought her enough time.

I see another gas leak to my left and point my pistol at it.

All right, you cultist assholes – in the words of my generation, up yours.

**THE END**

* * *

_I go missing, no longer exist._

_One day I hope I'm someone you'd miss._

_Shock me awake, tear me apart, pinned like a note in a hospital gown._

_Deeper I sleep, further down a rabbit hole, never to be found._

_It's only "falling in love" because you hit the ground._

_- _Queens of the Stone Age, "I Appear Missing"

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

Flame shields up! And I've got one last round of self-indulgent author's notes coming your way…

This ending is either genuinely sad or the darkest, cruelest joke of all. I'm not quite sure which. Hopefully this won't stop you from enjoying the story or from reading it again – perhaps in a different light in certain places now that you know how it ends.

The quote at the top of this page is from _The Iron Giant_, and so is the chapter title. Well, sort of. Would you like to know who else sports the same "stereotypically nerdy Buddy Holly glasses" that Alex wears? Oh, nobody – just some dude named Clark Kent.

**Fun Fact #1:**I've held back on this one for a while. The last line before the quoted Muse lyric that opened this story is as follows: "I will take the blow for you." Even the chorus in that We Were Promised Jetpacks song from Chapter 2 goes, "Bring me back to life / I've stumbled and I've staggered too many times." And those were _not_ the only times I hinted that this ending was coming.

In other words, letting Alex live was _never_ part of the plan. This was more about his journey than his destination. I wanted to get inside his head, explore his motivations for going off on his own to get those tools, and let him face his fears and learn some things about himself – including how he _really_ feels about a certain British bombshell. I also figured his inevitable death would be more powerful if I gave you all the false hope that I wouldn't kill him off. I'm a bad person like that.

**Fun Fact #2:** You know how a lot of authors on this site tell you they suck at summaries? Well, my Achilles heel seems to be titles. I went through about five different titles for this before I started posting anything. I settled on "Independence Day" for a couple reasons. First, it's the movie I used as a guide for Alex's character arc (he starts off as Jeff Goldblum, turns into Will Smith, and dies like Randy Quaid). Second, it's because that's what this fic is literally about – the 24-hour period during which he decides to start taking matters into his own hands. As a result, it reads like a running diary of the last day of his life.

**Fun Fact #3:**Let's revisit that tantalizing little question I stuck in the summary: "One-sided Alex/Lara – or is it?" I'm afraid this is another trick I've played on you. Reads like I'm planning on pairing them up, doesn't it? It actually means that Lara's feelings will remain ambiguous and the answer is up to you. Sorry, shippers.

Man, everything I write always ends up being _way_ longer than I expected; even author's notes. I should stop now. Thank you all for reading, and for your feedback! Hopefully I don't get _too_ many angry reviews for this ending.


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